How to play (bass/guitar/sing/whatever) rhythmically...?!

Miss Informed

Hey guys.

Was going to throw this into the songwriting section, but I think it's broader than that...

I've been trying to write a few riffs lately and find that, while the note combinations I've come up with are nice enough, I'm really lacking a rhythmic edge. Riffs seem flat and predictable in terms of rhythm. I don't know what do to about this, and am looking to understand rhythm a little more.

Here are some examples of songs that have that edge I'm looking for:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tja6_h4lT6A

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rF8khJ7P4Wg

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=upJuupWjcx8

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UVNT4wvIGY

<- lyrics are sung rhythmically here, really cool!


I'd like to be able to understand and analyze the rhythms in songs as I hear them.

Anyone have any suggestions for broadening my understanding?

rcaz

Do you play much stuff in complex or compound time signatures? Or changing time signatures? That's definitely a good thing to play with. I went on a 'prime signature' binge, writing songs in 5, 7, 11 and 13 (I felt I'd learned enough when I got to 13 :P) and I learned loads over those 4 projects.

A lot of Paranoid Android's coolness, for me, comes from the changing between 4/4 and 7/8. Jonny Greenwood's guitar solo in 7/8 at the end has some particularly cool rhythms involved. When you're in an odd-number signature it's a bit easier to come up with unusual rhythms, simply because you're less conditioned to those meters and you don't have a million different rhythms ground into your musical memory (think of how many different rhythms you hear in 4/4 every day, even without properly listening to music). Cultural conditioning and all that.

Get to understand the ideas of syncopation and polyrhythm too, definitely good concepts to be able to employ when you're looking for something rhythmically 'interesting'. And you're into Tool, polyrhythms and syncopation all over the gaff.

Herb Powell

YOu just kind of............feel it. El Pr0n's advice is good though

rcaz

Herb Powell wrote: »

YOu just kind of............feel it.

To a certain extent, yes, but if we're jamming in 4, and I start playing a 5:4 polyrhythm over the riff, and then you decide it'd sound pretty badass to play the 3:5 polyrhythm underneath my lines for a few bars before we both drop back into 4... Good luck just feeling that without some serious theory and practice behind you :pac:

Herb Powell

rcaz wrote: »

To a certain extent, yes, but if we're jamming in 4, and I start playing a 5:4 polyrhythm over the riff, and then you decide it'd sound pretty badass to play the 3:5 polyrhythm underneath my lines for a few bars before we both drop back into 4... Good luck just feeling that without some serious theory and practice behind you :pac:

Well I suppose I kind of take it for granted, having played guitar for 6 years, and bass for 2/3 (idk exactly), it just kind of feels natural. Sure, you haveto think about it, but, it's essentially practice and natural feel.
*disclaimer* I'm not trying to claim I'm a mad yoke *disclaimer*