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Time Feel - Exercise 1: Explanation

Tom Quayle 164 lessons

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Right - Here we go!

The first thing we'll need to be able to do is to play both on and off the beat whilst feeling each beat of the bar with your internal metronome. To demonstrate this, here's a visual representation of 2 bars of 4/4 sub-divided into 8th notes or quavers. 

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + | 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +                                                                                               

↑      ↑     ↑      ↑       ↑     ↑      ↑     ↑

The arrows point to the strong or down part of each beat which is where you would tap your foot in time with a metronome click. I want you to play a C major scale up one octave, doubling each note so that you change to the next note on the strong or up part of the beat as shown in the TAB below. When you've reached the top of the scale you're going to rest for one 8th note before descending back down the scale. Because you rested for one eighth note you'll now be changing to the next note on the weak or up part of the beat but your foot is still tapping on the strong down beat. This will make your picked accents fall as follows,

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + | 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + | 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + | 1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

↑      ↑     ↑      ↑       ↑     ↑      ↑     ↑           ↑      ↑     ↑      ↑       ↑     ↑      ↑     ↑                                 

Notice that your pick accent has moved to the + part of the beat but your foot must always tap on the number or down part of the beat in time with the metronome. This is much trickier than it seems and will give you a good indication of how you feel time at this moment. It would be a good idea to master this before moving onto the harder exercises.

Refer to the TAB and video if you're confused in any way and remember to TAP YOUR FOOT AT ALL TIMES!

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