PHOTO : �BRADFORDHUNTERWRAY
GUITAR
Dru DeCaro is a Grammy-nominated guitarist and producer . He owns and operates a studio in Los Angeles and has worked alongside Snoop Dogg , Miguel , Will . I . Am , and Andy Grammer . Dru has a jazz performance degree from Cal State University and endorses Paul Reed Smith guitars , Westone in-ear monitors , Clayton Custom picks , and Monster products . For more from Dru , follow his band Falconry or tune in to his online lesson series , “ Drutorials .” www . drudecaro . com , www . falconryjones . com .
By Dru DeCaro
EX . 1
Groove Theory
EX . 2
Some call it groove , some call it swing . It goes by funk , stank , grease , or my favourite : pocket . I like “ pocket ” because the word itself has rhythm , like “ boombap ” – you can hear the music when you say it . Whatever you call it , let ’ s zoom in on the all-important element of time and tempo , phrasing and feel . It ’ s time to improve your groove !
The Hold Steady Time is one of the most defining elements of a player ’ s style . Your own unique sense of time is as capable of setting you apart as your tone , vocabulary , gear , or speed . When we are talking about time here , we don ’ t mean playing fast versus slow ; we are talking about the subtle space between notes and how you string them all together .
Guitarists are perhaps famously known to step out front , turn up loud , and take a solo too fast , leaving bass and drums to stubbornly anchor the time or speed along as the tune ends 10 bpm faster than it began .
Some bands can do this very well . Certainly Led Zeppelin and the Jimi Hendrix Experience had their own takes on time and tempo , and I always thought Rage Against the Machine made brilliant use of gradually drifting tempo while still keeping pocket and attention to time . But the ability to push or drag a tempo and still sound like you ’ re grooving is pretty rare . For starters , you ’ re going to want to take out your metronome and learn how to push and pull on a steady beat .
Ex . 1 shows a few common ways we can subdivide a regular 4 / 4 bar . Get familiar with these note lengths ! Do you know what they sound like ? Do you know when you are playing them ? A great exercise is to set your metronome to a very slow tempo ( start with 30 bpm ) and treat that click as the downbeat of a bar . Now count through each of these subdivisions . Can you count two beats and land back on the click ? How about four , six , eight , 16 ? Pick a subdivision and count it out or play it for a few bars . You ’ ll be surprised how easy it is to lose focus and drift off course . I love this exercise because you don ’ t even need your guitar to do it .
Coldplaying Nearly everybody knows the infamous scene in Whiplash when Prof . Simmons is snapping his fingers and leaning into the kid for not playing his exact time (“ That ’ s not my tempo ,” he says ). It ’ s a touch extreme , and the kid is a drummer ( the band member generally expected to have his time together ), but guitarists aren ’ t always held to the same standard . In professional circles , however , how you gel with the elements around you in volume , style , personality , and groove will make all the difference . I always tell my students that even the best notes played out of time still make for a bad solo , but one repeated note played with great rhythm and feel can be the hippest possible statement . Neil Young has nearly perfected this technique . Coldplay too .
Ex . 2 is a rhythmic exercise that can be played on any note or chord . What you do with your fret hand is unimportant . Play through it using just one note or chord . Can you make a solid statement without relying on left hand flash and colour ? For that matter , can you make any rhythm sound cool using just your pick hand ? Working on your pocket often requires patience right down to the basics , but a great player is able to make even Ex . 2 groove hard .
Front to Back When reading notation or tab , it ’ s a challenge to pick out pocket clues . Musicians have been stumped for ages about how best to notate a groove . The challenge is that each note looks like a finite dot on a page – one single stab at a string – when in fact there is a space around that note . It ’ s three-dimensional , and whether you strike a note at the front , middle , or backside of that space is what will dictate your pocket and feel .
Check out Black Flag ’ s “ Nervous Breakdown ” for an example of playing on the front end of that space and D ’ Angelo ’ s “ Chicken Grease ” for what the back end of the beat sounds like . Neither is the “ better ” approach all of the time . Each piece of music calls for one or the other or something in between . Paying a little attention to that detail will make you sound super tight .
Pocket is really about style , and style and personality are difficult to teach . They aren ’ t scales you can run ‘ til your fingers bleed ; they are your fingerprint , your unique claim to our beloved instrument . A little bit of click track work and an understanding of the importance of pocket will advance your playing in any setting .
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