Module 5: Rhythm and swingLesson 4intermediate⏱ 75 min + 15 min daily for three weeks

Time feel: metronome practice, bossa nova and jazz waltz

Build time that holds up without a drummer, using subdivisions, dropped bars and slow practice, then apply it to the straight-eighth bossa nova, a basic samba and 3/4 jazz-waltz comping.

Why time feel is the skill that gets you hired

Ask any bandleader what they listen for in a new guitarist and the first answer is "time". Not speed, not vocabulary: whether the beat stays where it is when the guitarist plays, and whether playing with them feels easy. Good time is not a gift; it is the product of specific metronome work that most players never do because it is unglamorous. This lesson gives you that work, and then puts it to use in three feels where weak time shows immediately: the bossa nova, whose straight eighths expose any unconscious swing; the samba, which is fast and light; and the jazz waltz, where beat 1 is easy to lose.

The metronome tool has every setting used below: click on 2 and 4, click on beat 1 only, subdivisions, and dropped bars.

Subdivision: the foundation of steady time

Time wobbles when the space between beats is empty in your mind. Fill it. A player who feels eighth notes under every quarter note places the quarter notes better; one who feels sixteenths places them better still. The pyramid below moves from quarters up through eighths, triplets and sixteenths and back down, on one note. The test is simple: the beat must not move when the subdivision changes.

\tempo 80
.
\ts 4 4
:4 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 | :8 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 | :8 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} | :16 5.3{ac} 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3{ac} 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3{ac} 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3{ac} 5.3 5.3 5.3 | :8 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} | :8 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 | :4 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 |

Three ways to practise it:

• With the metronome's subdivision on, matching the bar you are in (eighths, triplets, none for the sixteenths). This checks your subdivisions are even.
• With the subdivision off, click on 2 and 4. This checks that you can supply the subdivision yourself.
• Silently. Count the subdivisions in your head while playing quarter notes only. This is what you will actually do on a gig.

Dropped bars: testing your internal clock

The metronome's drop bars setting silences the click for whole bars, every other bar or at random. Your job is to keep playing and to arrive exactly on the click when it returns. This simulates every real situation where the time reference disappears: a drummer who plays a fill, a bass player who stops walking for a bridge, a solo break, or an unaccompanied intro.

The exercise below is the simplest version: play two bars, then rest two bars while counting, then come back in. Use the Charleston so that each entry has a clear downbeat.

\tempo 100
.
\ts 4 4
(5.5 7.4 5.3 6.2).4{d ch "Dm7"} (5.5 7.4 5.3 6.2).8 r.2 | (5.5 5.4 4.3 6.2).4{d ch "G7"} (5.5 5.4 4.3 6.2).8 r.2 | r.1 | r.1 |

Progression of difficulty over the three weeks of this lesson:

1. Click on 2 and 4, no dropped bars, 100 bpm.
2. Drop every other bar.
3. Drop randomly, one bar in three.
4. Drop often, and lower the tempo to 70. At slow tempos a silent bar is nearly four seconds long; that is where you find out what your time is really like.
5. Click on beat 1 only. One click per bar. If you can comp the F blues from the previous lesson for three choruses with one click per bar and never lose it, your time is reliable.

Slow practice

Slow practice is not for beginners; it is for everyone, because the slower the tempo the larger each error becomes. Two things happen at 60 bpm with the click on 2 and 4 that never happen at 160:

• You hear exactly where within the beat you are placing each note, and you can choose to play right on it, slightly behind it (the relaxed "laid-back" feel) or slightly ahead (the "on top" feel that drives a band). All three are legitimate; what is not legitimate is not knowing which you are doing.
• You hear the length of every note. Comping chords that are supposed to be short reveal themselves as sloppy or ringing.

Rule of thumb for any new material in this course: first clean pass at 60 bpm with the click on 2 and 4, then raise the tempo in steps of 4–6 bpm, each step only after three clean repetitions. It is slower than you want and faster than you expect.

Bossa nova comping

Bossa nova is Brazilian, from the late 1950s, and it is played with straight eighth notes. Nothing swings. The first problem for jazz players is unlearning the swing they have just worked so hard to build; the second is that the guitar plays two parts at once: a bass line with the thumb and chords with the fingers.

The pattern has two layers:

• Bass (thumb): the root on beat 1 and the 5th on beat 3, each as a dotted quarter followed by an eighth that repeats the same note. Count "1 (2) and 3 (4) and". The thumb never stops; it is the surdo drum of a samba school reduced to one string.
• Chords (fingers i, m, a on strings 4, 3 and 2): a two-bar rhythm related to the clave. Bar 1 attacks on 1, the and of 2, and 4 (the 3-3-2 cell from the previous lesson). Bar 2 attacks on 2 and 3. Then repeat.

The chord shapes are the top three notes of the drop-2 voicings you have been using; leave the bass string to the thumb.

\tempo 120
.
\ts 4 4
\voice :4 5.5.4{d ch "Dm7"} 5.5.8 5.6.4{d} 5.6.8 | 3.6.4{d ch "G7"} 3.6.8 5.5.4{d} 5.5.8 | 3.5.4{d ch "Cmaj7"} 3.5.8 3.6.4{d} 3.6.8 | 3.5.4{d} 3.5.8 3.6.4{d} 3.6.8 |
\voice :4 (7.4 5.3 6.2).4{d} (7.4 5.3 6.2).4{d} (7.4 5.3 6.2).4 | r.4 (5.4 4.3 6.2).4 (5.4 4.3 6.2).2 | (5.4 4.3 5.2).4{d} (5.4 4.3 5.2).4{d} (5.4 4.3 5.2).4 | r.4 (5.4 4.3 5.2).4 (5.4 4.3 5.2).2 |

Practise the two layers separately for a week before combining them. Thumb alone, with the metronome's straight-eighths subdivision, until the dotted-quarter-plus-eighth bass is automatic. Then chords alone, counting the clave aloud. Then together, very slowly (60 bpm), and expect it to fall apart several times before it locks.

The full bossa bass line

Once the basic version is solid, learn the bass line that Brazilian guitarists actually play. The 5th is anticipated on the and of 2 and held through beat 3, and the root is anticipated on the and of 4 and held through beat 1 of the next bar. The pattern is written here on Cmaj7 for two bars; every chord uses the same rhythm with its own root and 5th.

\tempo 110
.
\ts 4 4
\voice :4 3.5.4{d ch "Cmaj7"} 3.6.8 -.6.4 -.6.8 3.5.8 | -.5.4{d} 3.6.8 -.6.4 -.6.8 3.5.8 |
\voice :4 (5.4 4.3 5.2).4{d} (5.4 4.3 5.2).4{d} (5.4 4.3 5.2).4 | r.4 (5.4 4.3 5.2).4 (5.4 4.3 5.2).2 |

Samba basics

Samba is the faster, older cousin of bossa nova, and it is felt in 2/4: two beats to the bar, with the heavy surdo drum accenting the second beat, not the first. That reversed accent is the single most important thing to get right. The guitar keeps the same thumb-and-fingers division of labour, but the chords move in sixteenth notes and the whole thing is lighter and quicker. The figure below is a simplified two-bar samba comping pattern; real samba guitarists vary it constantly, but this is the skeleton.

\tempo 100
.
\ts 2 4
\voice :4 5.5{ch "Dm7"} 5.6{ac} | 3.6{ch "G7"} 5.5{ac} | 3.5{ch "Cmaj7"} 3.6{ac} | 3.5 3.6{ac} |
\voice (7.4 5.3 6.2).16 r.16 r.16 (7.4 5.3 6.2).16 r.16 r.16 (7.4 5.3 6.2).16 r.16 | r.16 (5.4 4.3 6.2).16 r.16 r.16 (5.4 4.3 6.2).16 r.16 (5.4 4.3 6.2).16 r.16 | (5.4 4.3 5.2).16 r.16 r.16 (5.4 4.3 5.2).16 r.16 r.16 (5.4 4.3 5.2).16 r.16 | r.16 (5.4 4.3 5.2).16 r.16 r.16 (5.4 4.3 5.2).16 r.16 (5.4 4.3 5.2).16 r.16 |

Count sixteenths as "1 e and a 2 e and a". Set the metronome to 2 beats per bar and start at 80 bpm; samba sits at roughly 100–120 bpm in 2/4 (which feels like 200–240 if you count it in 4). The chords must be very short and quiet; the thumb and the accent on 2 are what people hear.

The jazz waltz

Jazz in 3/4 came into the repertoire in the 1950s and 1960s and stays there. Standard 3/4 comping avoids the "oom-pah-pah" of a Viennese waltz: beat 1 is often left empty or anticipated, and the most common figure is a dotted-quarter pair, a chord on 1 and a chord on the and of 2, which is the Charleston squeezed into three beats. Swing the eighths as in 4/4.

The waltz below runs twice through a ii–V–I in F and uses a different figure in nearly every bar: dotted-quarter pair; 1 and the and of 2 held; 2 and 3; 1 and a short 3; the and of 1 held then 3; a push on the and of 3 into the I chord, held for a whole bar; and short hits on 2 and 3. Count every bar as "1 and 2 and 3 and" before playing.

\tempo 140
.
\ts 3 4
(1.5 3.4 0.3 3.2).4{d ch "Gm7"} (1.5 3.4 0.3 3.2).4{d} | (1.5 2.4 0.3 1.2).4{ch "C7"} r.8 (1.5 2.4 0.3 1.2).8 (-.5 -.4 -.3 -.2).4 | r.4 (3.5 3.4 2.3 5.2).4{ch "Fmaj7"} (3.5 3.4 2.3 5.2).4 | (3.5 3.4 2.3 5.2).4 r.4 (3.5 3.4 2.3 5.2).8 r.8 | r.8 (1.5 3.4 0.3 3.2).8{ch "Gm7"} (-.5 -.4 -.3 -.2).4 (1.5 3.4 0.3 3.2).4 | (1.5 2.4 0.3 1.2).4{d ch "C7"} (1.5 2.4 0.3 1.2).8 r.8 (3.5 3.4 2.3 5.2).8{ch "Fmaj7"} | (-.5 -.4 -.3 -.2).2{d} | r.4 (3.5 3.4 2.3 5.2).8 r.8 (3.5 3.4 2.3 5.2).4 |

Exercises

1. Subdivision pyramid at 70, 85 and 100 bpm, each of the three ways (subdivision on, off, silent). Five minutes.
2. Play two, count two, then dropped bars every other bar, then random, at 100 and at 70 bpm.
3. Bossa thumb alone for a week at 100 bpm with the straight-eighths subdivision on; then chords alone; then together at 60, 80, 100, 120.
4. Full bossa bass on Cmaj7, then on the whole ii–V–I, at 90 bpm.
5. Samba at 80 bpm in 2/4, thumb accenting beat 2; raise to 100 over the three weeks.
6. Jazz waltz at 120, then 140, then 170, click on beat 1 only for the last pass.

Quiz