[Musicians] Learning/sharing/remembering rhythms

[Meg Dedolph via Musicians]

I tend to work mostly in a trio or quartet, and we don't use written music.
We also have terrible memories. So we tend to limit ourselves to one
"thing" - rhythmic variation, etc. - per tune or set, and everyone knows
what it is and we've practiced it so if someone calls "thing!" it happens
pretty much together. But that's the benefit of working in a smaller group,
I think. It's a lot easier to make grooves up on the fly when it's only
four people.

The times I've been involved with a large band arrangement (dance camp,
etc.) with 15-20 people on stage, we did make handwritten signs and it was
someone's job to make decisions about when different things were going to
happen, hold up the sign and cue the group. It worked fine, but it's
inelegant conducting, imo. And it was someone's full-time occupation to
drive the bus, so to speak.

I like Sarah's idea - it seems to make a lot of sense and be workable, and
you don't have to worry about someone not happening to see a sign that the
leader held up, etc. Thinking back to when I played a lot of percussion and
did a lot of hand drumming, that was kind of how things worked in drum
circles.

I hope some of this is helpful?

Meg

On Tue, Feb 14, 2017 at 11:18 AM Sarah Gowan via Musicians <
musicians at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:

> I generally avoid charts, signs and other extra visual aids because they
> can confuse more than they help and think a leader can conduct it by making
> space for the change in rhythm. A trick we use in our open band is for the
> leader to pare down the sound to a soloist or small section and one rhythm
> player who sets the groove. Then the leader adds in other players
> indicating that they should play the same rhythm or groove. Most people
> figure out how to join in once the pattern has been established. We
> generally don’t do it on the first tune of a set because the caller is
> still calling. It’s a good variation for the middle or last tune of the set.
>
> Sarah
>
>
>
> On Feb 14, 2017, at 12:07 PM, Emily Addison via Musicians <
> musicians at lists.sharedweight.net> wrote:
>
> Hi fellow musicians. :)
>
> Up here in Ottawa, we just had a great workshop with David Kaynor and
> George Wilson.... .... it was all about non-melody for melody players.
>
> One of the ideas we talked about was playing rhythm - something very
> familiar to me as a contra piano player.
>
> The challenge we've had with our community band (10 people) is how to get
> everyone on the same 1-2 rhythms/grooves.  When we do non-melody, it's
> everyone doing something different which sounds like a wall of sound.
>
> Do any of you have tricks for sharing rhythms?
>
> In particular, I liked the idea proposed by David in terms of having
> sentences that remind you of certain rhythms. But what I'd love is a chart
> showing names for different rhythms and related, where to emphasize beats
> or drop beats.
>
> Thoughts?? ??? ????
>
> So much of what we do is intuitive but with a large group, there's only
> 2-3 of us working as a team right now.
>
> With thanks,
> Emily in Ottawa
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