Questions about rhythm and phrases

[Dan Shipway]

Hey, recently I have attempted to start playing more to try and feel rhythm while playing but I haven’t got a clue how, its almost impossible to tap my foot to a drum beat and play at the same time and most of the time finding the beat of a song is quite challenging. I don’t know any other ways to do it and It’s holding me back massively.
Another thing I noticed when playing was that my phrases last quite a long time and all sound the same. I often resolve to octaves of the root but I don’t know when is the right time to stop them as I honestly for the life of me can’t feel the music, I can’t get into it and know when it is right to stop. My phrases also seem to sound the same in terms of speed as they are with all slow or fast and there is no change in the middle of a phrase or at any point.
I want to do music as a profession someday but it seems like the basics are ridiculously far away.

 

[idssdi]

For the rhythm question would be try to practice with a metronome and put an accent on 2 and 4 because that’s usually where the snare is. When you play along to a song try to listen to the snare because that’s kind of your pivot as to where you are, as I said when you count the snare usually is in the 2 and 4 beat. Like one TWO three FOUR, where capitals imply a snare hit. This doesn’t count for all songs but it’s a good basic to start with.
A good way to know how long your phrases should last is by trying to use rests in your playing. If you listen to most blues greats you will notes there is a lot of quiet time where they don’t play anything but let it rest for a bit. As far as your phrases always being the same speed. That’s not actually Nescecarily bad. Just make sure you pay attention to other forms of Dynamics(like loud/soft and stuff like that). My basics as far as Dynamics in a solo usually is go slow at the beginning and kinda go gradually start throwing in speedier licks and go the fastest during the ‘climax’ of your solo.
I think the easiest way for me to practice this and knowing when to stop would be to listen to yourself while you play(this also takes some time to be able to do) and just stop the phrase when you get close to boring yourself when you listen to your own playing. This helped me a lot when I’m improvising.

 

[Dan Shipway]

Thanks Ids this will be very useful!