Timing

Let me define the title – by ‘timing’ for the purposes of this post I mean time-signatures, keeping the beat, or just generally singing/playing the notes when you should.

One of the more important skills you need when you sing or play an instrument is control of timing. Seems simple, doesn’t it? Well, not really, for several reasons.

(Please note: just because I am writing this post doesn’t mean that I have got is sussed. I am still struggling at times with pace/speeding up/general rhythm patterns, just that I am trying to work on it to get better.)

If you can play the right notes in the right order, but play them at the wrong time, making some too long, some too short, or not moving onto the next note quick enough, the effect can be jarring, especially for those who are well-acquainted with the how the song should be/usually is played. Now, that’s not to say you can’t put your own spin on a song, or to make it your own. But if the reason you are doing it different is because you are not aware of how it should go, then you’re just not doing it that well. Then again, there is the argument that sometimes, someone doing it wrong can make something good, better, or at least different (Israel Kamakawiwoʻole’s version of ‘Somewhere over the rainbow’ is a prime example).

If you’re one of those people who says ‘I don’t need music theory, I just feel it’, there’s a good chance that you are falling into poor timing practice. Tapping your foot to the base time-signature is useful for some people – it’s simple, involves no extra equipment, uses a part of the body that you are probably not using otherwise for playing your instrument (whatever that is), and only requires the ability to know how many beats there are in a bar, and to count to that number (often 4, next most likely is 3). A slightly-more advanced version of foot-tapping is used by many modern drummers – earpiece with a ‘click-track’ playing, so that they don’t vary the speed.

If you really don’t know the difference between a 3/4 and a 4/4 song, you need to look up ‘time signatures’ now – I’m not going to repeat what is already adequately explained on the internet here.

Some people practise using a metronome. I haven’t done so, on the basis that there won’t be one there when I’m performing.

Why is it that people often speed up when playing together? It’s this: when a group of people are playing alongside each other, everyone is (or at least should be) listening to each other. Naturally, they tend to follow each others’ pace. If one speeds up very slightly, before you know it, everyone is playing that fraction faster. Not a problem, but if that person, or any other member of the group, then carries on going slightly faster again, then it adds to the first speed-increase. By the end of the song, unless you’ve got a good pace-setter keeping you on track, the whole group has speeded up noticeably.

Note I said that you can have a pace-setter – either formally or informally, someone can be the person that the rest of the group try to keep in sync with. In a conventional band, this is usually, though not always, the drummer. In some other groups, the lead instrument player sets the pace. In some groups, the leader of the group or a conductor does so.

Of course, there are some songs where you are supposed to change the speed. Usually, this will be by speeding up gradually throughout the song, but variations, like slowing down for one verse, adding an extra bar, or even changing time signature are also possible. For example, there are many songs that are supposed to mimic a train rhythm. You might think it suitable to start slow, speed up gradually through the song, reaching a high near the end, and then slowing right down to a natural stop on the last line, mimicking the way that a train would accelerate and decelerate. But you can’t do these very well if you can’t keep a steady pace on a basic song first.

Presuming that you’ve got the basics sorted in your mind (if not actually necessarily in practice yet), the other thing is when composers put in strange time-signatures or notes/phrases that are ‘off the beat’. This is a bit more tricky. But there are ways: for instance, if you’re playing 4/4, instead of counting ‘One’,’Two’,’Three’,’Four’, you can actually count 8 half-beats to give you the ‘in-between’ notes – most of the notes will start on the 1st, 3rd, 5th, and 7th beat, but some might be on 2,4,6 or 8. The conventional way to do this is to count ‘One’ ‘And’ ‘Two’ ‘And’ ‘Three’ ‘And’ ‘Four’ ‘And’. Of course, it doesn’t matter how you do it as long as you’re consistent and you (and anyone you’re playing with) understand it.

Of course, if you’re satisfied with how you’re doing at the moment, then either (1) you’re not going to become a good musician or (2) you already are an excellent musician (but I don’t think there are many of those reading my blog posts). Because musicians should always be trying to do better.