Playing with Feeling

[Drew Barton]

One of the things I consistently try to do, particularly when learning a new piece, is fire up the metronome. I get fairly good at playing the timing but has been discussed ad nauseum here and elsewhere, playing to time can sound rather....robotic.

So when I try to play it "musically" or with feeling, things go to St Helens in a handbasket.

Example: song is in 4/4, measure is all quarter notes. So I play along1,2,3,4.

Switch it up for "feeling" it is suddenly 1...2-and...3...and 4

so the timing is off. Sometimes it is 1 and 2 3 and 4 and 5 and...
and I am too long for the measure.

What are the steps to get some feeling without losing time? Or am I just starting it wrong, I feel like timing and accuracy first, feeling later but maybe I am backwards on that

[Mark Gunter]

Hey Drew! IMO, good timing is one of the big necessities for a musician - and I’d tend to disagree that playing in time makes a musician sound robotic. Playing robotically makes a musician sound robotic.

There’s a lot you can do to play with timing, if you have great control of timing, especially if you play solo. For example, on a slow air you could play rubato (look it up). You could also throw in an extra beat or two in certain measures for effect - many solo artists do that from time to time. What we call “crooked tunes” sometimes do that and have been canonized that way. Another thing you can do is drag the beat a bit. Getting a tad behind the beat with a relaxed vibe is better than rushing the beat.

no matter what, though, having good timing is crucial, otherwise how could you get by with any of those devices and sound musical?

[OldSausage]

Don't worry about feeling. Worry about time. Learn how to use time, and how to make time work for you. It is a lifetime's study. It is the first, last, easiest and hardest part of music. It is really all there is. The rest is just notes.

[Mandoplumb]

The length or " timing" of individual notes can vary to some degree which gives the song "feeling" but must resolve back to the beat or main timing or it's not music IMHO. In your example if the Song is in 4/4 timing each measure has 4 beats. That can be a whole note, a half note, an eighth note, a sixteenth note etc. Or any combination making 4beats. Now it's acceptable to drag any of those notes slightly so the quarter may be just a tad over or under 1 beat but you can't disregard the measure, if you push one note you must drag one to make it come out right. Yes some treat the measure the same, push one drag one but that gets hairy and you should really have good timing or your music gets sloppy or "unmusical"

[sblock]

As others have already commented, you can perturb the timing of notes within a measure a bit to generate a sense of emotive "feel," but you still have to respect the overall meter. If you're playing with anyone else, that is. I suppose you can do whatever you like if you're the only instrument playing. But music is all about a steady pulse, after all, so if you ignore that aspect too much, well, you've lost a certain musicality.

You might try, as an exercise, changing up the emphasis a little by deliberately increasing the volume of certain notes of the melody, rather than consciously playing these notes for longer or shorter times. The stronger pickstroke that's needed to increase the volume will also introduce a very slight delay, and thereby affect the timing, but not so strongly as to throw off the overall meter, which seems to be a problem for you now. Introducing small variations in playing volume can also introduce "feeling" into the playing of a piece, changing the emotional expression just a bit. Give it a try, and see how that works for you.

[KoalaBear]

Simple solution! get your hands on the book by Alex Pertout Mel Bay`s `Sight Reading` `the Rhythm Book`.It will teach your the basic then moves up with lessons on different rhythm, syncopations, the use of rests, ties, and dotted notes with simple rhythms to move advanced eights and sixteenth rhythms and their variations. and will make you a rhythm king.Also see whether you can join a music group so that you can place into use all the rhythmic structures that you learn and can apply in a live situation.Avanti Mandollero!

Tan

[Paul Busman]

You might try practicing...without your mandolin.Just hum, whistle, la-la-la,sing etc the tune. You can do this anywhere,driving the car,walking here and there, even really quietly at work (maybe). Freed from having to worry about the instrument,you can freely "play" with that feeling.Once you start to hear it with feeling in your head, and are able to give it that feeling a capella, it'll transfer more easily to the mandolin.

[pops1]

When you beat your foot, play to your foot like a metronome. I watch too many people beat their foot to the music and change tempo's like crazy. Your foot is the downbeat of the conductor, when it hits on the one you should be there. If you vary the notes, like a dotted quarter note, or any variance of the melody and you get off from the beat, for feeling, your foot tells you where you are. A metronome does it also, but it seems easier with the foot. Just remember the foot is the BOSS, not just tapping along with the music. FOLLOW IT.

[KoalaBear]

When you beat your foot, play to your foot like a metronome. I watch too many people beat their foot to the music and change tempo's like crazy. Your foot is the downbeat of the conductor, when it hits on the one you should be there. If you vary the notes, like a dotted quarter note, or any variance of the melody and you get off from the beat, for feeling, your foot tells you where you are. A metronome does it also, but it seems easier with the foot. Just remember the foot is the BOSS, not just tapping along with the music. FOLLOW IT.

Agree totally start with a consistent beat by tapping your foot on beat 1,2,3,4 (quarter rhythm.Simple!

then move on to 1&2&3&4& your foot moves down as you strum in the down direction on beat 1,2,3,4.... but the foot moves up while you strum on the string on the & in upwards motion on the strings ( strum is DUDUDU.....1&2&3&4&......eight rhythm )

...now you know simple quarter time and eight time.Of course you can vary all these rhythms by placing rests on whatever beat you like, or syncopating, by playing on the & and leaving out the downward strum on any of the beats.You master this in its simplicity and the rest will fall into place with time, you learn to anticipate of delay the beat, and then you can `swing it`The book of Pertout is the best guide to ` Swing`.

[catmandu2]

Don't worry about feeling. Worry about time. Learn how to use time, and how to make time work for you. It is a lifetime's study. It is the first, last, easiest and hardest part of music. It is really all there is. The rest is just notes.

Even more aphoristic - we're all just drummers, with variable pitch..

[CarlM]

I would disagree that playing in time sounds robotic or loses feel. Listen to a good fingerpicking guitarist like Chet Atkins or Merle Travis. The steady, steady rhythm of the bass notes drives the song like a heartbeat. That is what makes people move to the song. The melody moves around that beat but the beat is constantly present.

Listen to Doc Watson. No one ever accused his music of lacking feeling or emotion, but many have said you could set a clock by his timing. And the steadier it is the more you feel the drive of the song, not less.

Lack of dynamics on the other hand will make the sound robotic and emotionless. Practice changing volume while staying in time and it will put more emotion in the songs.

[Charlie Bernstein]

. . . The melody moves around that beat but the beat is constantly present. . . .

Yup.

And I don't think anyone has mentioned yet that the importance of landing on the beat also depends on whether you're playing along with someone else. If you're soloing, you can delay or rush one note and and get back to the beat on another with no problem whatsoever, and it can sound great.

It's only important to land right on the beat when you're playing with other people who have to land notes on the same beats you're aiming at.

Listening to a couple of popular bands most of us are familiar with, compare the often synchronized guitar lines of the Allman Brothers Band with the usually unsynchronized guitar lines of the Grateful Dead. Both bands' music is emotional, but landing right on notes together is fundamental to the Allman's signature sound while managing to "move around the beat" is fundamental to the Dead's.

But neither sounds robotic, and with both, "the beat is constantly present."

[Jess L.]

... Introducing small variations in playing volume can also introduce "feeling" into the playing of a piece, changing the emotional expression just a bit. ...

... Lack of dynamics on the other hand will make the sound robotic and emotionless. Practice changing volume while staying in time and it will put more emotion in the songs.

Yes.

The effect of volume/dynamics can even be demonstrated with midi-only computer-app playback of a written score's notes.

Below are short samples of the exact same written notes but 'played' two different ways, one with 'feeling' (my try at manual adjustments to the dynamics/loudness of individual MIDI notes, and a little swing rhythm too), and one without.

Both mp3 examples below are from midi-only playback of notes I wrote in the MuseScore notation app for a project I was working on several weeks ago. It should be possible to play these mp3's right in this browser page, by clicking the small left-side arrows, no need to separately download anything.

Example 1. FWIW, a midi-only version with dynamics and swing:



Example 2. Robotic version, no dynamics:

---

Notes: Version 1 is about as good as I can do with writing midi stuff, so far. I don't have a keyboard or other midi input method, I just write the notes I want on a music staff and then click on them to manually adjust the 'velocity' (loudness) of individual notes as necessary. I don't really set out to create feeling, it's more a byproduct of just trying to make stuff sound better, but for instance with that midi written stuff I do listen to a track a bunch of times to point up its numerous flaws and inevitably some notes will begin to really stand out in an annoying way, like "that note is too loud" so I turn down the volume a little on just that one note, listen to the track some more, notice more stuff that sounds wrong and go to adjust that, eventually the whole track might get adjusted. That's for midi-only stuff though - I *never* make any adjustments to actual recordings of actual instruments (I don't have the software or expertise to do that even if I wanted to), if an actual recording doesn't sound right I toss it out and start over. Lol.

Oh, and by the way... there are some people who actually don't like feeling. A very old friend of mine specifically dislikes any variations in loudness of individual notes, he dislikes feeling and emotion in music (wha...?? how can that be?), he prefers to literally play everything exactly as written - and I do mean *exactly* - no deviations whatsoever are tolerated. He's been that way for at least 50 years so he isn't likely to change. I was recently scolded for adding swing to a polka, he said the score didn't call for it, I pointed out to him that it was an unwritten rule in that particular school of music that those particular tunes should, in fact, be played with swing, no need to notate it, it was understood. Anyway, I will never understand the "no feelings allowed in music" mindset - I prefer to have some liveliness to music.

[Mark Wilson]

Anyway, I will never understand the "no feelings allowed in music" mindset - I prefer to have some liveliness to music.

Yep. Even a slower tune can feel great if everyone is synced to a beat with some feeling. As speed increases the tune has to straighten out some due to speed. Our jam group can have a good swing at moderate speeds. A fiddler at Merlefest said we brought out the cajun in his playing. TBH I don't know how to tell someone to achieve it - I just feel it when it's there and really miss it when it's not. A good feel to the rhythm creates a groove that makes it easier to stay in time imo.

[Ranald]

I'm no expert on the subject, but my first question would be: what are you feeling when you play? I sing many folk songs, and sometimes find that I do better if I remember to take a few seconds and get into the song before I start -- the audience never seems to mind. I'll put myself in the place of the song-maker; am I being funny? sad? complaining about work? I often sing better after doing this. Similarly, my fiddle playing improves when, for instance, if I play the jig "Little Burnt Potato," I picture myself playing at the cottage with Mom on the pump organ, my daughter step-dancing, and everyone having a great time. For a Scottish lament, I may picture myself leaving Cape Breton to return to the city, while not wanting to depart from either my loved ones or a place I love. If I'm playing the blues on mandolin, I might imagine myself in a club with other musicians and people drinking and dancing. In summary, if I want to play with feeling, I must summon the feelings.

That being said, matters of technique are important. In singing, for instance, dragging out the vowels makes the music more "emotional." Try singing the first lines of "Somewhere Over The Rainbow" or "Summertime" evenly, then with dragged-out vowels, and you'll see what I mean. However, I'm a person of strong emotions, and sometimes have to detach myself from them to get through a sad song. Technique is especially important in these cases; I'll sing and let the listeners feel. (I can't imagine that Eric Clapton is truly feeling every time he sings "No Tears in Heaven," about his son's death, or he'd never finish it.) Finally, I was listening to Cindy Thompson, an excellent local fiddler, with her impressive group of students, at a fiddle concert a few days ago. She said, "Music is what happens between the beats," but I'm not sure if that helps people like you and me or just confuses us further.

[Loubrava]

Not sure if your already doing it & maybe over simplistic but try different strumming patterns like a 1/2 time pattern in a simple tune can really change the feel. But don’t loose time or it’s a train wreck,

[Jim Garber]

I think what we are all talking about here is phrasing. Technically it is borrowing small amounts of time from one note and subtracting from others. In terms of actually feeling it would be the same as if you were singing those notes. I would suggest that with or without a metronome to sing the notes you want to play in a tune. You should be able to sing them in multiple ways, putting emphasis of different notes. You can experiment with the variants, even playing exactly the same notes but changing the phrasing.

[colorado_al]

Agree totally start with a consistent beat by tapping your foot on beat 1,2,3,4 (quarter rhythm.Simple!

then move on to 1&2&3&4& your foot moves down as you strum in the down direction on beat 1,2,3,4.... but the foot moves up while you strum on the string on the & in upwards motion on the strings ( strum is DUDUDU.....1&2&3&4&......eight rhythm )

...now you know simple quarter time and eight time.Of course you can vary all these rhythms by placing rests on whatever beat you like, or syncopating, by playing on the & and leaving out the downward strum on any of the beats.You master this in its simplicity and the rest will fall into place with time, you learn to anticipate of delay the beat, and then you can `swing it`The book of Pertout is the best guide to ` Swing`.

This is a great tip from KoalaBear. The way I like to think of it is if you're playing well to a metronome in 1/4 time, double the speed of the click. Then, instead of thinking in 1/4 notes, try your timing in 1/8 notes. If it calls for 1/4, try thinking of it as pair of tied 1/8th notes. Then start stealing an 1/8 from one side or the other to make say one 1/8th and 3 tied 1/8ths. Or you can pull 1/16 either way. Another great technique is to play as though the 1/4 is 2 1/8th and play a passing note on one of the 1/8th notes as you go from one note to the other in the melody. Perhaps with a slide up from the semitone below the note in the melody. This kind of change will keep you from sounding robotic, allowing you to vary the note and timing a bit. Once you start building in this flexibility, you will find you can vary the length of each note, and your lead in or out of the note, and still keep time per measure. Using hammer on, lift off, slide, bend, vibrato, etc. can also help to avoid the robotic sound of one strummed note per 1/4.

[sblock]

You're getting a lot of excellent advice here. Playing "with feeling" can mean any of a lot of things! It can mean changes in the underlying tempo itself (e.g., tempo rubato), changes in the dynamics (e.g., piano, mezzo-forte, fortissimo etc.), or changes in the phrasing (straight, swing, jazz, etc.). And more. In particular, a lot of the discussion is revolving around phrasing changes. Phrasing changes occur with the otherwise identically-timed notes in measure, and they preserve the overall tempo -- they never violate it. They steal time from some notes and add it to others, but it's a zero-sum game! Swing time is a great example of this: it adds a bit of time to notes that fall on the beat (and subtracts from the rest), to give a "bouncy" feel. The effect can be easily be heard. I am appending two examples of MIDI files, produced by TablEdit, of the A-part of "Blake's March," by Norman Blake. The first example is played with straight timing: no notes are shortened or lengthened. To my ear, this version sounds totally flat! The second example is played with "swing eighths," which have the effect of introducing a bouncy feel into the march. Because these files were generated by a computer, you can be sure that the overall timing (tempo/meter) is perfect, and identical for both files. They both sound robotic and unhuman, of course, but the second example seems more expressive, to my ear. I like my marches to sound bouncy, because we bounce as we march along!

Swing eighths can be thought of this way:



The moral here is the playing "with feeling" can mean many different things, but phrasing is important -- and also a matter of taste, too. You can learn to play with various types of phrasing without ever losing the overall tempo. It just takes a lot of listening and then playing along: with a recording, with a computer, with a metronome, or even with other people. But to add feeling, don't just practice by playing: practice by playing along.

1Blake's March flat.mid

2Blake's March swing.mid

[Mark Wilson]

I could be wrong but to me emphasizing the 1 and the 3 note in a tune gets it on the path to having some feel vs every note play with same emphasis.

[KoalaBear]

I could be wrong but to me emphasizing the 1 and the 3 note in a tune gets it on the path to having some feel vs every note play with same emphasis.

Well u can try the backbeat on 2 and 4 that`s what mandolin rhythm excels on.

[Ace V]

Dave Brubecks Time Out, says it all.

[gspiess]

Timing is emotion.

Charlie Watts of the Rolling Stones, Greatest Rock and Roll Drummer of All Time. Take Honky Tonk Woman: first half of the song Charlie plays "behind the beat", meaning he drops the snare just a tad late, creating a very laid back, relaxed groove. Halfway through the song, when the sax comes in, he tightens up the snare, nailing it on the beat, and increases from 90 to 91 beats per minute. The song now has a very dynamic groove with a lot of excitement going on. Finally, Satisfaction: Charlie plays a 4/4 beat on the 1 and the 3 with the snare, slightly ahead of the beat to create a very driving, powerful groove.

So apply this to the mandolin... I think Andrew Marlin of Mandolin Orange is very effective at creating emotion through the timing of his chop, as well as he and Emily's vocals.

Master this by playing with a metronome. If you can't hear it, you're on the beat. Then start playing around the beat and sense how the song feels.

[Brian Harris]

Someone did an analysis of tempo on classic songs before everyone played to a click.

Turns out, time varies when played by humans. The metronome inculcates and internal sense of pulse. Then, you put the metronome away and play like a human.

Great example - just about all classical. There's great liberty with time.

[Drew Barton]

appreciate all the thoughts and feedback. I see I left out a minor detail...or perhaps the most important one...

these are for songs my Dad wrote but did not record and several people will collaborate on it. I am laying a line to serve as the baseline that will ultimately get removed, then playing melody over it and others will hit the rhythm, vocals, and so forth so I guess on some of it I should prefer the accurate time

as for the other I will work on several of these things. I am well familiar with the theory basics and his incessant use of triplets with changing chords twice in a triplet is the bane of my existence...