The Chetboard

...at 58 is harder to play than up to speed! I think I get out of time about twice throughout the basic tune but even at the slower speed, I'm all over the place! I'm asking Santa to bring me a heavier shoe!

That's one of the joys of band in a box. It makes you play in good time.

Probably the main reason Jerry Reed and Chet hired Paul. Remember...Paul had quit playing professionally and was working in the post office when Jerry talked him into picking it up again. Jerry could have had his pick of hot young musicians but he knew what he was getting with Paul. Later on Chet felt the same way.

He was dead solid as a rhythym player and he played the songs nearly as well as Chet and Jerry did which meant he knew the material. Top it off with he just didn't rattle and you have a powerful "metronome" at your side.

Yep, I think if Paul, Ringo and Bresh were all playing together, the world could set all clocks to them!

I've also discovered listening to various mp3's and some videos, if you can start a metronome at the right moment, you can hear when/where others get out of time during all these classic fingerstyle tunes and it's usually about the same time w/everybody...not so much w/the heroes...especially in recorded versions but there are moments of live performances where a sec to think about improve instead of what was recorded required some fast thinking and just 'feel' to get something that worked back into time!

Try Ready for the Times to Get Better along w/a metronome (http://www.metronomeonline.com/) and notice if after the signature hammer-on/pull-off lick doesn't sometimes throw it all off by a half beat..only to jump right back once the melody starts...and then later..

I think many are capable of playing out and getting right back in w/o too much notice when the moment one goes out of time is type of lick that can accommodate a sec. out/in lick the Dizzy Fingers lick during Cascade, the Super Lick, solo breaks, etc (not counting jazz/jazz fusion or parts of gypsy). But for the most part, that solid tempo that gets implied is ever the quest!

I don't think that there is even one of Chet's faster songs that I learned to play "cleanly" without having used a metronome to learn it. I was 35 years old, with 30 years of playing experience behind me before I began to use a metronome. It was Todd Hallawell who suggested this to me. I was always afraid that I would "mess up" by using a metronome. Instead it helped me to develop a level of accuracy that I wasn't expecting. Ironically, anything fast that
I try to play now, I do the best with either a metronome or, as Norm suggests, "Band-in-a-Box".

All good points. I guess I consider staying on time different than staying with time. Keeping the tempo is one thing but what I was playing with, especially in Jerry's Breakdown, was hitting the 1, 2, 3 and 4 at the right time for each group of 16th notes. More so just for an exercise of course since all tunes, including many classical compositions, sound flat and of no life if played as written. There has to be something 'ahead' at a point and something 'behind' or a good mix or it becomes too mechanical.

But, I agree w/the general idea that our ears will fill-in or filter-out at certain points as long as the overall song started right and ends right.

I'll have to post something I found earlier today. An amazing girl playing the violin, piano and some Asian string instrument similar to a laid-out harp all in the same tune and switching between them. She's got the beat!

I know that with most sequencing programs there is a feature called "humanization" where a certain percentage "off the precise beat" can be designated for a more realistic sound. I realize that drum machines playing the same pattern over and over again can sound "sterile". If I were to use a drum machine or BIAB in a recording, I would view it as an accomplishment NOT to have that fact be noticed in the finished product.

Metronomes and programs like biab are tools. I can remember people actually thinking there was something wrong with the mentronome the first time they used it. (music store days)

I like biab because it stops me from rushing and gives a little support that comes in handy when playhing a melody. I pretty much just run the bass so I can pay attention to my clumsiness.

In any case the metronome and biab type programs aren't perfect but the good they do is well worth the investment

Norm. I had that exact experience but fortunately I figured out what was really wrong before it even occured to me to take it back to the music store !

I started studying with a classical player and he kept telling me my timing was off and I should practice with a metronome. I finally bought a metronome just to humor him even though I knew my timing was okay. During the 1st 5 minutes I spent with that thing I was sure it was defective. Fortunatlely I did figure out the real problem was with the user!

The metronome did me a lot of good but like what pretty much what everyone on this thread has stated, it can only get you so far.

Jack Baker wrote:it is not meant to keep the spacing of notes perfectly even all the time, just to do the best we can and keep the overall tempo of the musical piece from speeding or slowing. The aggregate timing is all that can be asked from a metronome.

Well put, Jack.

Two points that I might add to this discussion:

1. We (at least "i") often need to be reminded that barlines are a relatively "new" or "young" concept in the history of music. Furthermore, they really evolved as a way to better organize music notation, not as way to make music "feel better". When music was written without barlines, it was written as phrases. Although a repeated phrase, with or without variations, would be played across the same time span, barlines would not be defined by the player. The more barlines you leave out, the more interesting your phrasing will be. Of course, this requires an impeccable sense of time, (time, in this sense, is not to be confused with "defining the beat"). Chet was real, real good at this - quite rare for solo instrumentalists who are both trying define the "American Beat" idea while also trying to make the melody feel "barlineless". Of course, Frank Sinatra was the master of barlinelessness but, he had a an orchestra and a conductor to help him keep things together.

2. We can develop this skill by progressively counting less (meaning to focus on fewer beats) while we practice. For example, play a two or four bar eighth note lick and focus on getting every note timed perfectly, i.e. count "in eight". Continue playing but start to count "in four"(here you are only worrying that the down beats being perfectly placed), then "in two" (here it is just beats 1 and 3, the +2+, and the +4+ can waiver), then "in one" (Chet's playing often felt like he was "thinking in one"). Then, just start worrying about every other beat one (two bar phrases are far and away the most predominant in American Music, and this is how it feels that Chet is thinking when he played in Cut Time, which was pretty often). When you start being able to focus just on whether or not every four bars you play are taking the same amount of time, you are in Sinatra territory, especially his early, crooning period.

This exercise can be a little frustrating and it can feel more than a little "scary" to trust that your inner clock is, in fact, capable of feeling large time spans to a remarkably accurate degree (and that so is your audience!), but, it is the time keepers master skill to feel all sorts of different time divisions, not just "define the beat".

Randy

If you're working a solo gig with a backup track you need to pay attention to the entire presentation or the wheels come off. If you're playing solo gigs without a backup track you get a little more lattitude.

The core of "keeping good time" is being able to be supportive to anyone you may be playing with in a duo or group situation. We've all played with people who rush (or worse lag) a song and know what a drag that is.

The bar-less feeling Rande so well describes becomes evident in you and your bandmates playing cohesively. A group that has that musical rapport with each other is a pleasure to see and hear.

I think it's human nature to rush a bit but it is up to the musical "wingman" to keep things together.

A good, steady and reliable bass player is worth their weight in gold...