They took the rhythmic nature of the dance and provided a melodic version of it, usually in the form of a series of quick melodies that provide a constant and malleable rhythmic groove. That means more rhythm.įolk fiddlers found this balance centuries ago, accompanying dances without the need for any other instrument. Just as the yin/tang of melody/rhythm tends to find equilibrium on a keyboard or guitar, we should seek a similar balance on strings. Even drummers can play melodies using marimbas or different pitched drums. Keyboards, although primarily fast decaying percussion instruments, can still play melodies, as can guitars. This is perfectly understandable, but it does make us very lopsided in terms of the yin/yang of melody and rhythm. So we let the other instruments worry about the groove. Our function in an ensemble is to be melodic on top and to provide sustained bass on the bottom. This was a point that was brought out to me by Berklee College of Music String Chair, David Wallace and which he wrote about in my book, The Strum Bowing Method. In fact, the modern bow was developed in order to bring out the legato qualities of the instruments, as opposed to the baroque bow, which produced a lighter sound, (with a quicker delay, more like plucked or percussion instruments,) and lent itself better to quicker rhythmic playing. This vocal focus was always the point of string (and brass and wind) instruments and what set them apart from percussion instruments, guitars (or lutes, back in the day,) and keyboards (except for organs,) all of which have sharp attacks and quick decays of the sound and are well suited to play fast subdivisions of the beat. Because we use a bow to produce a sustained, vocal-like sound, our bridge is arched in order to allow us to play one string at a time. The difference between string instruments and guitars is the bow and the bridge. Sustaining instruments generally cover the vocal-like melodies and non-sustaining instruments cover the rhythmic grooves.
Music can be divided into 2 very general categories, and they are like yin and yang: melody and rhythm voice and movement vocal and physical. The focus of getting a good sound out of the instrument tends to push us towards longer tones and melodic playing as opposed to rhythmic playing, which brings us to the second point: Strings are Primarily Melodic Instruments There’s not much we can do about the relative difficulty of playing string instruments compared to other instruments, but we can integrate rhythmic training at the earliest stages much better than we tend to do.
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Or a drummer, who learns how to hold the drumsticks in the first week or two and quickly moves on from the how of producing a drum sound, to the what of playing rhythmic patterns. Compare that with a guitar student, who may become proficient at basic strumming within the first 15 minutes and then moves on to learning tunes. This process of building the fundamentals of control of the instrument can be the primary focus for several years.
It’s hard just to get a decent sound out of a string instrument, so our pedagogy tends towards solving that problem: bow control, pitch control, etc. The first point is pretty self-explanatory. Strings are primarily melodic instruments In defense of all my classical brethren and sisters out there, let me say that I feel your pain and point out that there are four good reasons why it’s likely we don’t groove well four things that separate us from our natural inclination to be rhythmic and groove on our instruments: So what is the key to connecting with the groove and why is it so elusive for many classical string players? Let’s start with the 2nd half of that question. In fact, strings can easily hold down a groove without any rhythm section at all, as fiddle players and string bands can attest. String players can be just as effective in a rhythm section as a guitar player. The old refrain, “strings can’t swing”, may be our past, but it doesn’t have to be our future. Contrary to popular belief, string players can swing, they can groove and they can rock out.