UD#113 A Deep Dive Into Time and Rhythm

Posted on August 13, 2024 by guido

UD#113 A Deep Dive Into Time and Rhythm 
from Ukulele in the Dark with Guido Heistek

It can be helpful to think of rhythm and timing as two separate layers in music making.

Rhythm is the pattern of long and short sounds. It happens in music as well as in all sorts of things outside of music, from bird song to noisy washing machines. Rhythm is everywhere.

Time, on the other hand, is the ongoing pulse that gives rhythmic patterns a context to exist in. It’s an INNER sense that guides the placement of musical events. Rhythmic patterns don’t make sense unless they are played IN TIME. When a sense of time is lacking from a musical performance, it becomes chaotic and impossible to coordinate among players. It becomes less musical.

Imagine if gravity suddenly disappeared? Things would float around crazily. There would be no up or down. Nothing would be in its place. That’s what music without time is like.

This doesn’t mean that the relationship between the rhythm and time in music needs to be stiff or robotic. The player is free to place notes wherever they want relative to the beat. But, if the internal sense of pulse is not there, it is instantly obvious to the listener. It’s tough to listen to.

So, how do we work on a sense of time?

The most common suggestion would be to play with a metronome. I love this idea! I have noticed, however, that it can be next to impossible to play along with a metronome if you have not developed some internal time feel of your own. It is your own time sense that you need to coordinate with the metronome. Without that, it’s just too much all at once. Also, without a sense of how the rhythm relates to the beat, it’s nearly impossible to play along with a metronome. 

So, what would be a good way to practice attending to both time AND rhythm? 

A CHANGE OF HEART

In recent years, I’ve started getting students to practice counting out loud. I resisted this for a long time. It felt too technical. When learning to play a piece of music, I thought students should just be able to feel it. This works fine as long as they CAN feel it. But, what to do when a student can’t feel it? Or, perhaps they are fine when listening and following along with a recording, but things fall apart when they try it on their own? For these situations, it’s useful to bring the process to a more conscious level so that the student is able to monitor themselves and can tell if they are actually doing what they intend. That is where counting can really help. 

COUNTING OUT LOUD

When musicians get ready to play something together, they often get someone to count so that everyone can start with the same time feel. The counting is an expression of where the beats are going to be throughout the song. Each beat gets a number, and the beats are usually grouped in bars of 3 or 4.

I often get my students to just count for a while.

As they count, I invite them to notice if they are keeping the beats (numbers) evenly spaced. Do they notice a pause at any point?  Did they speed up? Slow down? 

Next, we add some rhythm to the counting. The next layer!

COUNT AND CLAP

In the exercises below, we start with 2 bars of counting to set up the time feel, and then, we add a clapping rhythm. 

Notice what happens to your counting when you introduce the claps. Do you keep the tempo steady as you add the claps? Are you counting every bar? Did you leave one number or beat out? Missing beats make me very sad. I am sure you feel the same. 

LISTEN:

Exercise a)

Exercise b)

Exercise c)

Adding “ANDS”

Now, let’s add an “and” between every beat. Practice saying “One and two and three and 4 and…” Try to keep it as even as possible.

Okay, now let’s add a rhythmic pattern to the counting. The claps will either fall on the beat, or on an “and”. This time, we only do one bar to set up the time feel. The clapping sections are always repeated.

LISTEN:

Exercise d)

Exercise e) 

Exercise f) 

I’ve put together a work sheet of samples from songs that my students have found rhythmically challenging over the years. 

RHYTHM and TIME WORKSHEET

Click for a printable copy

I hope this is helpful! Let me know how it goes. 

Next newsletter, we will apply what we learned today to a duet version of “Low Rider” by War.

Looking forward to it!

All for now.

Guido

---

• ← UD#112 Hark! The Herald Ukulele Duet
• UD#114 Funky Bassline on the Uke! →