I make a big deal about counting… a REALLY big deal.<\/p>\n
But this is the blues we’re talking about around here and I get a good number of “You’re supposed to just feel the blues… if you spend all your time ‘1 and 2 and 3 and..’ it’s all going to sound stale and lifeless.”<\/p>\n
And that statement is actually completely right-on, but it doesn’t help 99% of the people who are trying to learn to play the guitar.<\/p>\n
So let’s see if we can clear up some misconceptions shall we?<\/p>\n
But before we do, I want you to think of the timing and beats of the music as the frame of a building…<\/p>\n
If you hang the drywall on the walls and there is no frame, will they stay there? No.<\/p>\n
And if you hang the drywall on the walls with no frame, will they arrange themselves nice and orderly the way there are supposed to look? Or will they tend to be somewhat randomly placed?<\/p>\n
So beats, timing, counting, rhythm, whatever you want to call it, that’s the framework that gives you a place to hang your notes.<\/p>\n
Now there are some God-gifted people who have a wonderful built-in “inner clock” that allows them to innately know both where the beat is and what beat they are on in the grand scheme of things.<\/p>\n
In other words, they just “feel” where beat 3 of a measure is and can naturally tap their foot, bob their head, or otherwise internalize the rhythmical pulse of the music.<\/p>\n
Then, there’s everyone else (meaning almost everyone else on the planet.)<\/p>\n
For 99 out of 100 students I teach, that inner clock has to be cultivated and developed through some patience and a little discipline.<\/p>\n
And that means counting, and lots of it.<\/p>\n
The goal of counting is to not need to count anymore, just like the goal of my teaching is to get you to where you don’t need me anymore.<\/p>\n
It’s a process to be sure. And not one that happens overnight by any means.<\/p>\n
Will things sound slow and somewhat stale if you are counting out loud as you play? Yes.<\/p>\n
Over time will you need to count out loud less because you can feel the beat better? Yes.<\/p>\n
How will you know when that happens? If you don’t know, keep counting.<\/p>\n
Will you learn faster (a lot faster) overall if you spend the time to count out loud now even though it seems really tedious at first? Yes.<\/p>\n
Do you (meaning me) still count? Yes and no…<\/p>\n
There are 2 times when I’ll count as I play – 1) when the beats get funny because there is a bar that doesn’t have 4 beats and the timing is really awkward. Usually I have to count that through a few times until I get the feel down. I won’t have to do it forever and this situation pretty much never happens in blues, only jazz or rock for me.<\/p>\n
When I have to keep track of a certain number of bars (measures.) I can feel groups of 4, 8, or even 16 pretty well just on feel because it happens so often. But every once in a while there will be a song with 9 measures of something. That’s not going to come naturally so I’ll have to keep track.<\/p>\n
Now in my case, I do that in my head because I can – but there are times when I move my lips too.<\/p>\n
Do other professional guitar players still count? Absolutely. Some lean on it more than others, but counting is essential to musicians of all levels and styles.<\/p>\n
At the end of the day, you have to listen to what’s coming out of your guitar. If you’re playing all the notes but it still isn’t sounding like the music… then you may want to look at the counting.<\/p>\n
When a student comes to me and plays the notes, but it still doesn’t sound good, it is ALWAYS the timing that is the issue.<\/p>\n
So, as I like to say, if it’s hard for you to count out loud while you play – then you need it. And if you don’t need to count anymore, you’ll know it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
I make a big deal about counting… a REALLY big deal. But this is the blues we’re talking about around here and I get a good number of “You’re supposed to just feel the blues… if you spend all your time ‘1 and 2 and 3 and..’ it’s all going to sound stale and lifeless.” […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6300"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6300"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6300\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6301,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6300\/revisions\/6301"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6300"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6300"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bluesguitarunleashed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6300"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}