‘Rests’

[Ukulele Player]

I grew up playing piano and woodwinds. So when I see a REST in a music sheet, I stop playing.

The group I play with, keeps strumming.

When the music sheet has Treble Cleff notes AND Chord notations, then the notes are replaced with rests, shouldn’t the strumming cease? What is there is a chord notated above the rests on the Cleff line?

Again, I stop strumming. But I’ve never been ‘classically’ trained on guitar/ mandolin/ ukulele.

Thanks.
Tracy

[EdHanrahan]

... I’ve never been ‘classically’ trained on guitar/ mandolin/ ukulele.

And neither have most folks around here. It's common for, let's say, roots-oriented musicians to learn pretty casually from friends, or by ear, or copying off of records (... there used to be these big black flat disk thingies...). This means that most don't depend on detailed sheet music & notation TO DEFINE the music; those of us who DO read notation mostly use it to learn the melody and then drop the music ASAP.

Most roots-ish music, object of many if not most fretted instruments, is played more by feel than by some composer's or arranger's written definition. I can think of LOTS of tunes where the lead melody line has rests built in but the accompanyment (rhythm strumming, bass, drums, etc.) continues non-stop. Should we be expecting dancers to freeze in place each time the melody takes an eighth-note rest? I suspect not!

Most of the music that folks think of around here is rarely written out in full notation anyway. The melody might be defined in notation and/or tablature while the chords are simply written in to be played, or not, at the discretion of the rhythm players. That's a big part of what makes "popular" music so much fun to play.

OTOH, if you're playing true classical, and/or an orchestral arrangement (as in a mandolin orchestra), then each part IS defined in full detail, and the rests that are found one line, or group of instruments, may or may not coincide with the rests that others are playing.

A favorite quote goes along the lines of: "Yeah, I know how to read notation, but not enough to hurt my playing any!"

[colorado_al]

You're likely reading a rest in the melody line. The chords are for the rhythm section and usually that carries on regardless of the melody. There certainly are songs or arrangements where the rhythm will rest but that is often when the melody continues through to highlight the line.
You will seldom see all of the parts written as you would in classical music.

[John Kelly]

Your rests belong to the melody (or other harmony) line and are there for the guidance of the player who is playing those lines. The chord symbols indicate which chords are to be played in each bar but not the actual rhythm of those chords. A classical guitarist reading a guitar score would have the chords notated in full and from this would know which version/inversion of the chord was being used, rather than seeing the symbols above (or below) the melody line.

In a simple tune in key of C Major there would be symbols for the basic C major, F major and G(7) and perhaps some others such as A minor depending on the complexity of the melody and style of the tune. Those symbols would not tell the player whether the C major chord had the notes arranged C-E-G-C or E-G-C-E or even G-C-E-G, (root, 1st and 2nd inversions) so all the symbols are doing is suggesting a chord leaving it up to the player to select whichever inversion he/she wishes. The rests in your melody line are not really relevant to the rhythm player, though as the previous poster says, there might be times when the rhythm pattern is suspended to create a specific effect in the delivery of the tune. A sudden silence can be a very powerful device in a tune (when done deliberately!).

[Ranald]

There's good advice in the above posts. If you're playing traditional or "folk" music -- in the old sense of the word, music passed on orally & aurally from one person to another -- there is generally no correct version of a tune. In fact, the 19th-century scholarly search to find original versions of tunes, tales, etc., was fruitless in most cases. However, some regions and cultural groups are more musically conservative than others, and may insist on what they consider a proper version of a tune. Generally, people playing traditional and even a great deal of popular music (e.g., country, rock) are free to play around with the tunes a bit, but only within the limits of that musical tradition, though a few outstanding innovators may change the boundaries. Mandolin players often use tremolo throughout the rests, to sustain the last note which fades out more quickly than it would on a guitar or banjo, or put in little fills (essentially, musical decorations), especially at the end of phrases. In some traditions -- the blues comes to mind --you're considered a boring musician if you don't add your own touches and come up with something unpredictable now and then (see the Buffy quote immediately below), hence the emphasis on improvisation.
Enjoy your playing, Tracy.

[sblock]

Some fiddle tunes actually have deliberate "stops" in them when the music ceases for a few beats (for example, "Beaumont Rag" often features a stop in the second part on the tonic). But most don't. Just because there's a rest indicated in the melody line does not necessarily imply that the backup should stop, or indeed, that anything else should stop. So the simple answer to your question is "NO," the other instruments are not required to stop when you see a rest in the melody line.

[Ukulele Player]

Thanks to everyone. This helps clarify things.
I intermittently join a free form Blues group - where we do ‘rest’.
Twelve bars in ‘F’ with a quick turn around.
Or, Sixteen bars in ‘E’ with stops in bars 1 thru 4.
But we do, occasionally, rest.
My main group, we tend to simply strum continuously, and use the same strum - whether we play STAND BY ME or OCTOPUS GARDEN
Both of which have identical chords I, I, vi, vi, IV, V7, I, I.
As others here have said, it is the breaks, hesitations and rests that make the song interesting


But, great, as a rhythm player, it is perfectly acceptable to “Keep on Jamming”

[Dave Sheets]

Also remember that many of these tunes are (or were) dance tunes, and the dancers want the groove to keep going. A good dance band can put "stops" in a piece, but you have to do it without breaking the groove. Sometimes the rhythm section will do a full stop while the melody continues- whatever works in a dance tune arrangement. If the dancers are happy, all is well.

[EdHanrahan]

... whether we play STAND BY ME ...

Hey, neat example!

I had worked out a version to play w/ my nephew, he learning bass guitar w/ me on 12-string guitar. Per the original's intro and most verses, the bass is played rather staccatto -with distinct stops- while a fullly legatto/flowing bass under the instrumental break really gives the feel of the flowing violins on the original. Nothing in the music will tell you to do that - it's just in the feel & interpretation. Or in this case, attempted imitation!

If you're REALLY into it, Rolling Stones' "500 Greatest Songs of All Time; Guitar Classics Vol. 1: Early Rock to the Late '60s" gives the bass intro in (bass clef) notation, staccato with rests, and the instrumental break lead in both treble notation and guitar tab. Just sayin'...

[Ranald]

Also remember that many of these tunes are (or were) dance tunes, and the dancers want the groove to keep going. A good dance band can put "stops" in a piece, but you have to do it without breaking the groove. Sometimes the rhythm section will do a full stop while the melody continues- whatever works in a dance tune arrangement. If the dancers are happy, all is well.

If you're not yet totally confused, Tracy, read the thread, "What is Groove?"

https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/s...What-is-Groove

[Mandoplumb]

If you played piano and you ever played accompany music while some one sang or another instrument played a "solo" they would have rests that you didn't. The strum you mentioned is the accompaniment which in most cases don't have stops (rest) and starts the rest arebin the leader solos.

[Toni Schula]

.
...
OTOH, if you're playing true classical, and/or an orchestral arrangement (as in a mandolin orchestra), then each part IS defined in full detail, and the rests that are found one line, or group of instruments, may or may not coincide with the rests that others are playing.
....

And there is still much freedom in classical music as the great Leonard Bernstein explains here:

https://youtu.be/9ZX_XCYokQo

[Roger Moss]

I played a 'rest' once that lasted 8 years. Now that's dedication to craft.