Channel: Luke from Become A Bassist

Category: Music

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Description: ►► FREE: Get all the drum practice tracks from this lesson and start start getting on the grid → becomeabassist.com/groove-test I committed a ‘cardinal sin of groove’ for years and I didn’t realize until a teacher of mine pointed it out to me in the most embarrassing way… I was about 18 years old and getting taught for the first time by some serious musicians. Being a slightly arrogant kid, I show up to my first band rehearsal ready to dazzle my new teacher and show him just how good I was. Me and the other 4 members of this jazz combo set up, ready to play, and the teacher comes in to count off the first song. He starts clicking the tempo unbelievably loudly (“How does he click that loud?!?) and in a calm, soothing voice, he counts off the song: “1-2-1-2-3-4” As we launch into it, I’m feeling confident, but also a little bit nervous. I want to make a good impression. But before I get to use any of the lines and licks I had been working on, the teacher starts waving his hands in the air, stopping us before we even get going. Then he says, "Not quite my tempo". Ever seen the movie 'Whiplash'? It's scary how accurate that movie was...(up to a point at least) “OK” I think. “No big deal. Just getting into things”. The teacher starts clicking again. I listen intently to his tempo, trying my best to internalize it and stay with it. For the second time, with a mammoth click in his hands and a quiet intensity in his voice he almost whispers, “1-2-1-2-3-4” We catapult back into the same song and I try my best to keep the tempo as well as use all the lines I’d been practicing. But again, we don’t even make it to the 4th bar before the teacher’s hands were up in the air again, stopping us. “Something is wrong here. The groove’s not sitting right.” A knot starts to tie itself up in my stomach. The groove? That’s MY job! Had I been doing something wrong? Was it my fault things weren’t up to his standards? “Let me hear just the drums and bass.” the teacher says as his monstrous click returns. The knot in my stomach starts tightening further - I’m going to be really exposed here. For the third time: “1-2-1-2-3-4” I start playing, I strain my ears and I listen intensely to the drummer, determined to not mess things up, and to me, it was good - just like I had been practicing. But 4 bars into the song, the teacher again waved his arms to stop us and looked me right in the eye. “The problem is the bass. You’re not locking in with the drummer.” All sorts of thoughts flooded my mind. “What do you mean I’m not ‘locking in’? Of course I was! Is this guy just messing with me? There were 4 other people playing - why am I being singled out?” Then he asked everyone else in the group, “Can you guys hear it?” In my mind, I thought I was playing perfectly in time, but as I looked around the room, all I saw were nodding heads. Everyone else agreed that I wasn’t in the groove as well. Sh*t… Then he dropped this one on me: "Were you rushing or dragging?" (This was years before Whiplash came out - I guess art really does imitate life...) “Rushing or dragging? You mean I wasn’t perfectly in time?” I thought. To be honest, I can’t remember what I said, but what I do remember vividly is the feeling of being completely blindsided and honestly, a little embarrassed. I thought I was doing fine, groove-wise, but I had unknowingly been committing a cardinal groove sin - and nobody had pointed it out to me… Until that first rehearsal with this teacher. So how are you supposed to diagnose your own groove issues without someone telling you, without a Whiplash ‘teacher’ hurling furniture at you and without forcing your bandmates to have a potentially uncomfortable conversation with you? Well in today’s video, I want to show you a groove and timing test you can do by yourself that will let you see, in black and white, with your own eyes if you’re rushing or dragging. Now it's all well and good to do all this stuff with just a metronome, but it's going to feel a lot more natural (and train you a lot better) if you use actual drum tracks that simulate a drummer rather than a lifeless metronome just clicking away. If you want all the drum tracks I used in this video, just go here: becomeabassist.com/groove-test Fill out the form on that page and I'll send them all to you absolutely free - you can start testing and improving your groove in as little as 60 seconds Try this out and let me know how you go! If you’ve never tested to see if your tendency is to rush or drag, I’d be curious to know. You’ll see what I tend to do in the video. Good luck with the lesson and happy grooving! Cheers, Luke 0:00 Intro 0:31 What Does It Mean To Be 'On The Grid'? 1:23 Your "Visual Groove Diagnosis" Toolkit 5:23 How To Get On The Grid 10:43 How To Pass This Groove Test 13:20 When (And How) To Deliberately Get OFF The Grid 17:58 Get The Drum Tracks To Practice Your Groove #basslesson #Groove #becomeabassist