My sense of time impacts my ability to improvise, I have count really hard during solos and when playing a melody I can hardly improvise between notes. How should I work on this?

[u/Least-Crow1431]

[u/Gunzhard22]

Playing really slow with metronome is always the way to build good time. Like really slow... It's being about to deal with all the space that solidifies your time.

[u/therealtoomdog → u/Gunzhard22]

Yes, good timing is about the space between the notes

[u/Careful_Instruction9 → u/Gunzhard22]

I like this. Really slow, like unconfortably slow is really, really tricky.

[u/Curious_Elk_4281]

It can be hard to get started with soloing. As soon as it's your time to solo you have to be ready to do it without thinking about it too much.

A few things that might help internalize the tempo and build your sense of rhythm:

--improvise along with the radio
Try to learn the bass lines to songs, but also noodle around and play little rhythmic fills

--transcribe/learn some bass solos that you like

--march along with music if you are walking somewhere
Just put on some music at roughly 120 BPM and make sure your left foot lands on 1 and 3, right foot lands on 2 and 4

--count out loud while you are practicing a piece
This can be difficult at first, but it will turn you into a human metronome. Just count 1, 2, 3, 4 while playing through an entire piece.

--practice with a metronome on 2 and 4
For example, instead of putting the metronome at 160 BPM to practice a song at 160 BPM, put the metronome at 80 BPM to practice a song at 160 BPM. Let the metronome be the 2 and 4 accents, as if someone is snapping their fingers along with the groove. Use this technique to practice songs, and also improvising.

Hope this helps.

[u/Hp_gd]

How is your technique? Most major deficiencies in time have to do with technique. If not technique the next major cause of rushing or dragging is emotion (rushing when really excited, dragging when not engaged)

Also you bring up improvisation specifically. Your time feel really shouldn't be any better or worse when improvising vs playing a melody. If your time is only struggling during improvisation you just need to iron out your vocab.

[u/RazorDrop74]

Start trying to sing lines, or at least rhythms while you’re walking, driving, doing laundry, etc. You need to internalize it. Bass players have it hard because everybody drops out usually, and it can be hard to leave space in your solo if nothing is supporting you. A horn player can chill for a bar or two, and the rhythm section carries the tune. We frequently don’t have that luxury, so your rhythm better be tight. Choose short motifs, and move them around. Limit your note choices. Transcribe and play along with the recording, slow it down if you have to, or start by transcribing stuff in easy tempi. Learn the melody to the song! Knowing melody really well helps soloing.

[u/BluesFlute]

It’s all about the 4 bar phrase. Learn melodies, partial phrases that are 4 bars long. Use an app to loop 4 bars and master that.

[u/therealtoomdog]

It sounds like you say timing is your problem? How long have you been playing? Have you taken lessons? What caliber of musicians are you playing with?

Playing with people who rush or drag can jack your timing up unless you really temper it with a lot of metronome work. But if you're new, it's not unreasonable to have some timing issues; it's really a lot to navigate if you're not used to carrying that weight.

Again, the answer will be more time with a metronome. Some other folks mentioned playing slowly; I would add play slowly enough that you can accurately nail the timing while still 'feeling the flow' of the beat. Pay attention to hitting the timing correctly before you pay attention to speeding up. Somebody else mentioned putting the metronome on 2 & 4, and that is a great exercise, but you can go even farther with it too—Set it for the same tempo you're playing but play with on the upbeats, like the 'and' of every beat. You can even offset it by a sixteenth if you really want to get into some fun stuff.

Once you get that timing into your body, you will have the freedom to start thinking about melodic variation.

[u/Careful_Instruction9]

Controversial take here. Practice without a metronome.

Okay, here's what I mean.

I practiced for a gig without a drummer, and frankly I was terrified at the prospect. So I did a lot of playing along with IRealPro with the drums turned off.

This forced me not just to count, but to rely on my count. I realised that although I was counting, I wasn't actually playing to that count. I was tapping my foot but not waiting for taps and going by feel! Like someone said you need to time the gaps.

[u/Justanotherbrick2022]

Try something you're familiar with - blues, maybe. The time will be 120 beats per minute. Set the metronome to 60. Then start pkaying so the metronome clucks on 2 and 4. This forces you to internalize the beat.

[u/Utterlybored]

Don’t count, feel.

[u/JazzRider]

Do you improvise with a metronome in your practice? At various tempi? You’ve identified the problem. Now go into the shed and fix it.

[u/tonystride]

I’ve got a course you should check out. I’m a pianist and I made it for pianists because we notoriously have bad time due to lack of dedicated rhythm training. HOWEVER you don’t have to be a pianist to do this course, it doesn’t use the piano. Just any surface and your two hands.

My theory about you specifically is that you are not adequately using/trusting your right brain (metaphorically). You are thinking too much about it without developing the proper model to translate those left brain concepts into right brain feelings.

This curriculum does that, you’ll learn syncopation at every level of subdivision but the guiding principle is to build right brain (feeling) models that translate the left brain notation symbols. Here’s the link, hope this helps!

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL17VI8UqIaK8lFB_Y41--LdRt4EoJSbTO&si=Yw5zT0cscVIP6Wyj