Tap Yo Foot

[Izzy]

As some of ya'll know, my mom lives with me because she isn't doing so hot in the health department. I stay in my room a lot because it is also my studio and (wo)man cave. Mom can hear me well downstairs.

 

I had been practicing my set and went down to get a snack. My mom said, "You need to tap your foot. Black people tap their foot. British people tap their foot. You speed up as the song progresses. Tap your foot."

 

Would you believe it works!? milod once asked me if I use a metronome and to be honest, unless it is cranked HIGH, I have no regard for the thing, but the tap foot thing...I mean, it can't be escaped. I was on time all the way.

 

 

Any other common sense advice you people have been holding out on me?

 

Any common sense advice you got that surprised you because it turned out to be simple and effective?

[badbluesplayer]

Yeah - moving your body helps to keep time. Standing helps. Your body automatically knows how to do stuff in time. It's the brain that's sometimes is not in the groove.

[rct]

If you are singing and playing, be sure to walk around the room, the house, the yard if you have privacy. Walking while playing and singing helps not only develop timing, because you will stride along with the time after a few tries, you'll be doing three things at once instead of two, which will eventually make the other two really easy to do.

 

If you are a gigging guitar player you should always, in my experience and opinion, play/rehearse standing up, as BPP mentioned above. Standing lets whatever part of your body move that wants to, it isn't always the foot. Mine is a combination of the head first, the heel next, then everything else all at the same time when we get to the second half of GG&HT.

 

rct

[Rabs]

Lol.. British people tap their foot, that's funny :) (I understand the stereo type but its not really true any more)... However in saying that I do tap my foot :P :)

 

As for other advice... metronomes are pretty boring, so when im jamming I usually use my boss 4 track recorder that has like 100s of drum patterns in it... So I flick through them and find one that suits what im going for and play along with that, its always better than playing without some type of beat or timing...

 

You have keyboards that can probably do the same job.. even if its not a beat you want to use for the final production its still better that playing without one or with a boring beeping of a metronome :)

 

Of course nothing beats a good drummer, that's what they are there for ;)

[STEVIL]

I still tap my foot a bit, just habit I suppose.