Improving Time and Feel: Exercises and Discussion

The Importance of Time and Feel
Time and feel are the fundamental pillars of bass playing. No amount of bass technique can overshadow the importance of a strong, commanding beat and a comfortable, fluid feel. Serving as both the timekeeper and the harmonic foundation of the band, the bass player plays an essential role in making the music feel good. For the music to feel good, the bass player must have a strong sense of time and feel.

Yonit Spiegelman's Exercises for Improving Your Time and Feel
In this tutorial (featured on the Lessonface blog), Lessonface teacher and accomplished bassist Yonit Spiegelman demonstrates a few groove exercises designed to help bassists improve their sense of time and feel. Watch the video below, or check out Yonit's full blog post, which contains written transcriptions of each of the grooves she demonstrates--then read on for discussion.

The Metronome Is Your Friend
As Yonit demonstrates in the video, practicing with a metronome is tremendously helpful in strengthening your sense of time and feel. Notice how for these exercises, Yonit sets the metronome to 50 bpm, a very slow tempo. Practicing with the metronome at slow tempos forces you to focus carefully on the subdivisions within each beat--in order to stay in time with the metronome, you'll really need to concentrate on the underlying 8th- or 16th-note grid. Although the metronome is set to 50 bpm, Yonit's grooves are played at 100 bpm; this means that the metronome is sounding a half note rather than a quarter note. Importantly, Yonit uses the metronome to outline beats 2 and 4 of each measure, rather than beats 1 and 3; in doing this, Yonit can treat the metronome more like a live drummer, who would typically be playing a "backbeat" on beats 2 and 4, as is common practice in many, many musical styles. By using the metronome as a backbeat on beats 2 and 4, Yonit is creating a practice setting that feels more natural and "live".

What Do You Think?
Did you find this tutorial helpful? Do you have other advice for improving time and feel? Do you need help working on this material? Share your thoughts and questions in the comments. We'd love to hear from you!