Mastering the art of grooving requires practicing
your bass lines to sit in front of the kick
drum, behind it, and right on it.
Sometimes, a tight relationship between the
kick drum and bass is needed, but other
times, the groove feels better when they
don’t line up perfectly on the grid.Talking about “groove” and what it
means is almost like talking about
politics or religion: It sparks wildly different
and passionate opinions. Groove is a
word that gets thrown around a lot, and
in my opinion, is often misused. I squirm
when I hear a producer ask a drummer for
a different groove, when he should actually
be asking for a different beat or a different
pattern. The groove, to me, is the space that
happens between the beats. The groove is
the rhythmical relationship of notes played
by several musicians together, and yet it’s
still nearly impossible to put your finger on
its essence. As musicians, however, we have
the ability to approach it from the technical
end by breaking down some of the elements
that create this illusive, magical “state of
time” we all strive for.
Our tastes in art undoubtedly change
and evolve. When I first heard D’Angelo’s
album Voodoo, I didn’t quite get it. The
way bassist Pino Palladino and drummer
Questlove interacted on that album just
didn’t resonate with me right away, even
though I consider myself a huge soul-music
fan. When I returned to the record a few
years later, it changed my life. Nothing I
had heard in years made me feel like those
grooves did. My chemical and/or spiritual
reaction to what a groove was had changed,
and I had no power over it or intellectual
reasoning for it. The album is an astounding
example of bass notes and drum hits
not lining up on “the grid.” As a matter of
fact, they don’t even get close to lining up
in some parts. The groove, in this case, is
manifested and established in the obvious
rub between the bass and drums. To get
there, you have to know where the actual
time is and decide how to manipulate it
until you feel right. And feeling right is
much better than feeling correct, right?
Mastering the Groove is the title of my
favorite instructional video for bass. Taught
by Randy Jackson (yes, dawg, that Randy
Jackson), the video was released in the
’90s at the height of his career as a studio
musician. It features a specific segment
that focuses on developing the ability to
choose whether to play slightly behind the
beat, right on top of the beat, or slightly
behind it. The skill employed by D’Angelo’s
rhythm section has its roots in this demonstration,
but I had never actually seen
it explained by a high-level bassist until
Jackson’s video. As a professional bassist
myself, I’ve found that there is no skill
more important than to be able to manipulate
the feel by adding the human element
of intentional imperfection.
I’m often asked by astoundingly talented
colleagues (whose primary instrument is not
the bass) what they should focus on when
playing bass on their home recordings. I
tell them that as musicians, we all have to
consider how we attack the note and when
we cut the note off—the main two building
blocks of “grooving.” But we bassists, who
mostly play one note at a time, have to be
especially picky about these considerations.
You can never get perfect at it, and you can
never practice it too much, but these two
decisions are what separate world-class bass
playing from merely functional bass playing.
It’s a topic I spend a lot of time talking
over with my drummer friends, so if you
are lucky enough to have a great drummer
or two in your life, pick their brains and
learn from their point of view.
Let’s talk about a couple of examples
where these two building blocks of groove
really matter. When rehearsing for any
project, a very important task is to find
out what tempos and keys the artist or
bandleader has planned for performing the
songs live (they may likely be different from
those on the recording). From a groove
standpoint, there is a specific scenario that
happens often: Let’s say a band is playing
a song at 120 bpm and everyone is playing
professionally and right on the click. The
singer is happy with the pace at which the
lyrics are being delivered, but the music
sounds a little sterile to the instrumentalists.
A way to solve this dilemma, insofar
as groove, is to bump up the tempo a click
or two while the entire band plays lazily on
the backside of the click. To a listener, the
song will still have the pace it did at the
original tempo, but it will feel more relaxed
without actually being slower.
Paul Leim, the legendary session drummer
who played on Shania Twain’s The
Woman in Me, said that producer Robert
John “Mutt” Lange made the bassist on
that album cut his notes off right on the
snare hits, almost without exception. This
is a decision of tremendous importance. By
extending the notes ever so slightly over the
snare hits, a song will instantly get a more
laid back, less bouncy feel. But when the
notes are cut off right on the snare hits, you
can add a little “pep in the step” to a song
that isn’t necessarily funky to begin with. It
just grooves harder.
Playing ballads is where this note-length
decision is heard and felt most. Try playing
a slow ballad, and then immediately play it
again using different note lengths. Based on
the note length alone, you will quickly discover
that you are the captain of the groove
boat! And all of a sudden, the direction and
feel of everyone else’s playing will seem to
be something you control too.
Most of your practice time should focus
on the groove. Scales, modes, gear, and your
hairdo all come in a distant second.
Victor Brodén
Nashville bassist and producer Victor Brodén
has toured and recorded
with more than 25 major-label
artists, including
LeAnn Rimes, Richard
Marx, Casting Crowns, and Randy Houser.
His credits also include Grammy-winning
albums and numerous television specials
on CMT and GAC, as well as performances
on
The Tonight Show and
The Ellen
DeGeneres Show. You can reach him at
vbroden@yahoo.com.