Three Blind Mice Improvisation Experiments 2 – Rhythm
Max Romeo’s version is one of many Reggae versions! In the middle of this track there are two very open moments. Have a listen below and you will hear that almost nothing happens except the accompaniment keeping up a groove.
Can you clap along with the brass (trumpets)? Can you use different rhythms? Try to improvise a rhythm solo. Imagine a story. Perhaps a horse is going from a slow walk to a gallop? Or it is a conversation between two or more people?
You could even grab your instrument and find the home key, as we explained in the previous post. And use that note to play the rhythms!
In Billy Wells’s version there is a great distribution of rhythms.
Listen to the syncope in the bass. It sounds like this:
Then the guitar with this rhythm
The drums join with sixteenths in the high hat.
Can you think of a rhythm you could still add? Slower or faster than what is already there? Or a rhythm over a longer period of time? These are all very small motives, but perhaps you could do something with a half note and two quarters? The point here is to see that music has a certain amount of space and it’s important to find which space is left for you. Or, perhaps the space is too filled for you to add anything and this is a moment to wait for your turn.
It would be great if you would record yourself a bit, even without image on a smartphone and share your results with us below. We learn most from each other!
A word about sharing our recordings: we expect everybody to be respectful of our ventures in improvisation. It’s totally fine to make mistakes and help each other, but mean comments will be deleted and the writer banned from coming back.
🙂
Go on to a listening experiment next!
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