Most of my students have probably heard me say that a million times. It’s one of the first thing I tell them and for a good reason. Most people want to learn notes, but don’t even think about the rhythm of a song. If there is no rhythm, there is no music. You can’t play with anyone without it and you’ll barely be able to play with yourself. Even dancers count music to make sure that they are synchronised. There are only twelve notes in music, but rhythm possibilities are infinite.
Music without rhythm
Imagine an orchestra of a hundred musicians, but none of them have rhythm. What will ensue is a cacophony. Try to clap your hands at the same time as someone else without rhythm, it’s impossible.
I remember when I had just finished high school and was about to go to college to study music, I thought I was a great guitar player, because I could play solos, I knew my scales and lots of chords. When I got to college and started playing with different bands, I realized very quickly (rather I was told very early on), that I had no rhythm. It had not occurred to me that rhythm was that important. I always thought of the notes first.
I had a rude awakening when I started my theory classes, we had to sing and tap rhythm almost every class. We also had dictations where someone would sing rhythm and we had to write down what we heard in a few tries.
So, I started using the metronome a bit more. I also started really focusing on rhythm when I was listening to music. Tapping the beat to each song, trying to figure out the time signatures, creating different rhythms that I would play over songs that I’d listen to. I worked really hard at it, to the point where my friends in school would ask me to help them with their homework. I even started helping my drummer friends when they didn’t understand certain beats. I’m not kidding, I worked really hard at it and I still am. It became one of my favorite things to work on.
Nowadays, rhythm is what I work on the most with my students. They don’t always like it or understand it at first, but in the long run, they are very grateful like I am. Most of the time, when I make a mistake, it is because I am messing up the rhythm, not the notes. I remember playing a solo that I had to improvise and I completely messed it up. I was using the right scale, but I just didn’t get the rhythm.
Time Signatures, Measures and Tempo
Not every musician in a band plays throughout the whole song. There is usually a progression during a song where some instruments will start playing only during the first chorus or they might start later in the song. Even in big orchestras or big bands, not everyone is playing at the same time.
We manage to do these things by counting in our heads. Depending on the time signature of the song, we’ll count to 4 or to 6 or any other number that relates to the type of rhythm played in a song.
A time signature determines how long each measures are and where the accents will be. A measure is a type of rhythmic loop that keeps coming back throughout a song. Most songs are in a time signature called 4/4 or common time. What it means is that if you tap your foot to the beat of the song, each time you count to four, a measure is over and you start again at one. During the song, you will be able to hear chords change and parts of the song change on the first beat of measures. You can get more information on time signatures in our theory section.
Time signatures can vary from 4/4, 2/2, 6/8, 3/4 to 5/4, 7/8, etc. There are a lot of different time signatures, which means that you count a different amount of notes and types of notes. The most common types of time signatures are 4/4 and 6/8. I’d say 90% of the songs you hear on the radio uses those. Each time signature feels differently. 6/8 is used for songs that are generally more mellow like Halleluiah from Leonard Cohen. 4/4 is the most common for any genre from heavy metal to jazz to rock, to pop, funk, etc.
There are other factors that make rhythm feel different like the tempo. The tempo of a song is the speed of the beat in a song. That is the speed at which you would tap your foot to the music. That doesn’t mean that musicians won’t play fast notes on a slow tempo, it just means that you tap your foot at that speed.
You might have noticed that drummers often count out loud before a song, or they might hit their sticks together. It’s not for show, but to tell the band the tempo of the song and when to start. The drummer in a band is like a conductor for an orchestra. He keeps the beat, but also indicates a change from verse to chorus by playing fills. He also controls the volume of the band in a song by playing louder or quieter.
The rhythms within a time signature is also a big factor for how a song is going to sound. Like mentioned above you can have a slow song with fast notes. That is often the case in Funk music. You can also have the opposite where the tempo is really fast, but the musicians play long notes, which may feel slow.
Then there are accents. You could be playing a simple rhythm, but if you put accents at different places, it might feel completely different. It is a good tool to keep people interested in what you are doing on the stage.
Writing about all those things reminds me how complicated rhythm is. One of the reasons that most people struggle with rhythm is that it is not tangible. I can play a note of C on a piano or a guitar, but I can’t play a quarter note without having a point of reference like my foot or a metronome or a drummer to tell me if I am doing the right type of note or not. Rhythm is intertwined with time. Only with a watch or a clock can you tell time, you can’t hold it or touch it, you can only feel it.
Using your Foot to Keep the Rhythm
Most of the time, when I teach a new student, they don’t understand why I make them tap their foot so much. They don’t realise how much coordination playing music requires. Why is tapping your foot so important? Because it’s one of the only way to keep the beat and to know what kind of rhythms you are playing. Like mentioned above, rhythm is the most important aspect of music.
When I play a guitar solo, I keep my foot tapping, even if the notes that I am playing are complex, because I have to know where I am in the song. If I make a mistake in the notes I am supposed to play, it sucks, but it’s not that big of a deal, as long as I don’t lose track of where I am rhythmically. If I do, I am in big trouble. It is much easier to get back on my feet with notes, I can move my finger one note higher or lower than where I am and I should be fine. If I lose my sense of rhythm while playing, it is quite hard to get it back. I need to stop playing for a few seconds to get my bearings back.
It is especially important when I am playing a song with punch lines and breaks. Imagine the person that plays the clash cymbals in an orchestra. They have to play only once at the 25th measure. If that person loses count and plays a beat off, the accented note that was supposed to be played by the whole band is ruined.
I strongly suggest to all my students to tap their foot while playing their instrument, especially while practicing. I often make them do rhythmic exercises with their hands while their foot is tapping and they are counting the beat. It is very important to learn the basics of rhythm, even if you are a musician that can play the coolest chords and scales, if you have no rhythm, you are useless to a band. All my students learn rhythm without their instrument and with it. Most of them could probably do basic drums, because I make them work on their rhythm and coordination. It’s very useful to do, because whatever instrument you want to learn requires coordination and multi-tasking with several parts of your body.
Tapping your foot is one of the best ways to understand rhythm. My foot is my point of reference to what kind of rhythms I play. If I tap my hand once every four times my foot is tapping, I am playing whole notes. If I tap my hand once every two foot tap, it is a half note. If I tap my hand every time I tap my foot, I am playing quarter notes. If I tap my hands twice as fast as my foot, I play eight notes. If I tap my hand four times as fast as my foot, I am playing sixteenth notes.
Music is based on those notes: Whole, half, quarters, eighth and sixteenth. There are variations of those notes, like triplets of eighths and quarter notes and more, but I won’t get into that in this blog post. What I am trying to explain is that the amount of notes you play in comparison to how many times you tap your foot is what determines the type of notes you are playing. Make sure that your foot taps at a consistent speed. If I struggle with a certain rhythm, I always go back to tapping my hands and feet to break down this rhythm into manageable parts and work on the transitions until I am comfortable with them.
I remember teaching a mom and her daughter the song amazing grace. One of them would play the chords and the other would play the melody. The mom didn’t understand why I was so adamant about making sure the rhythm was right, so she would rush through the melody to get to the end of the song while her daughter would still be playing the first few chords. The song never sounded right, but the mom still didn’t get what I was trying to teach her. I understand that some people don’t want to work on rhythm or they expect to become good at music very quickly, but there are steps that need to be taken if your goal is to play music with other people and not just play at people. I believe that anybody can learn basic rhythms if they are willing to put in the required effort.
One thing that good musicians do that most beginners don’t understand, is that they take their time when playing a song, keeping the beat, so that the song sounds good. I noticed that most of my students, when they play songs for me that they have practiced during the week, they usually start the song very fast and finish even faster. I understand that they are nervous, but they shoot themselves in the foot when they do that, because the faster they play the harder it becomes and the more mistakes they make. It’s a vicious cycle.
What I have learned to do over the years is to take a few seconds to think about the song that I’m about to play before I start. I imagine how fast the song should be and I play it slower than that. My reasoning is that because I am nervous, when I think of a song, I often think about it faster than it actually is. So, if I start slower than I imagine it, I am sure to be ok. I use that trick in concert as well. It also gives me time to get into the mood of the song. If I am angry and I am about to play a happy song, it might not come out the right way if not in the right mind set.
In conclusion, remember that rhythm is the most important aspect of music. Practice rhythm as much as you practice your notes, or more, because if there is no rhythm, there is no music.