The Daily Grist: “I got rhythm. I got music.” (Ira Gershwin)
Rhythm. Music. Who could ask for anything more? Well, depending on your preference, just add in my gal or my guy and you’re pretty much on anyone’s path to happiness.
Notice what comes first in those classic Gershwin lyrics. Rhythm. Without rhythm as a foundation, you don’t have music at all. A ten minute drum solo with no others playing can be very good music. A Rap artist talking to a beat is considered music by many millions of people. But would a nice melody generated at random time intervals sound like music? I don’t think so.
My heart’s beating with the rhythm of the rain (Stanley Brothers)
A heartbeat or a ticking clock or a tapping foot is the foundation of any music. When we get together as friends and jam, we are forced to adjust to each other’s imperfect rhythm but if you listen to the pros, for example Jimmy Martin’s band always had a good groove, you know what to aspire to.
Little (or sometimes big) mistakes have a way of creeping into any group of musicians trying to play together. The worst case scenario is what we call a train wreck. Everybody gets lost and the so called music comes to a crashing end. But did you ever hear a train wreck that was caused in the end by anything other than a breakdown of rhythm? I guess it’s possible if someone starts playing a completely different song all of the sudden but I’ll bet you that before the others give up there will be a rhythm breakdown of some sort.
In order to save a potential train wreck all of the other musicians in the group need to play solid rhythm so that the person or persons going temporarily astray can find their way back to the music. I can’t tell you how many times I have flubbed a solo, covered the mistake as best I could and been complimented at the end for such an out of the box solo! A faulty solo that might have caused a train wreck was saved because people payed attention to the musical beat rather than to the relatively imperfect notes I was playing.
I’ll end with a famous story about a conversation between mandolinists Jethro Burns and Dave Apollon in 1977 (Mandolin World News vol. 2 #2). The Russian maestro asked Burns “which hand is more important in playing?”. Burns replied “I said the right hand, reason being if your right hand don’t hit the right string your left hand don’t matter.” The reply met with Apollon’s approval.
