Nathaniel School of Music

Improve Your Sense of Rhythm on Piano: Time Feel, Swing and Triplets (Part 2)

To build a strong time feel on piano, keep a steady pulse, divide each beat by two, three or four, choose straight or swing, and then create grooves by playing only some of the divisions or accenting them in irregular groups. In short: divide more and play less.

Video lesson by Jason Zac · Intermediate · 24 min

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Key points

This is the second part of Jason Zac's rhythm series at Nathaniel School of Music. It shows you how to develop a reliable time feel on the piano. The ideas work just as well for singers, guitarists and percussionists.

Part 1 covered the pulse and the time signature. This lesson builds on them with beat division, straight versus swing, and rhythmic devices such as the tresillo, irregular accents and the gallop.

Start with the pulse

Whenever you hear a song or a fellow musician, first ask yourself whether you can feel the pulse. Almost all music has one. Even classical music, where the tempo moves around, still rests on a pulse. Without it, music rarely connects with listeners.

The pulse is then grouped into a repeating cycle, which is the metre or time signature, such as 4/4 or 7/8. Keep the pulse steady in your body no matter how busy the notes become.

Divide the beat

A bar of four beats does not mean you can only play four notes. Ask yourself how much you are dividing each beat.

Divide by two: eighth notes

Splitting each beat in two gives eight slots in a 4/4 bar. You count them as 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Without the division you have only four containers, which sounds wider and lazier. With it you have eight, while the pulse stays exactly the same.

Straight or swing

Eighth notes can be played two ways:

Swing played exactly on that two-thirds point is a kind of perfect swing. Many players simply feel it rather than measure it. Swing sounds laid back and bluesy. Rock and roll uses similar material but plays it faster with straight eighths.

Divide by three: triplets

Splitting each beat into three gives you the triplet world. It is a sound often heard in epic film scores.

Divide by four: sixteenth notes

Splitting each beat into four gives 16 possible hits in a 4/4 bar. You count them as 1 e and a 2 e and a 3 e and a 4 e and a.

Build patterns by leaving gaps

Playing every division usually sounds mechanical and tiring. The groove comes from knocking off some of the hits, much as a house needs open spaces as well as walls. You can also share the remaining hits between your two hands.

Create patterns with accents

Another approach is to keep every division but highlight some of them. You can use a higher note, a lower note, a chord change or any other emphasis. On other instruments that might be a hammer-on, a slide or a drummer's flam.

In 4/4 with sixteenth notes, group the 16 slots as 3 + 3 + 3 + 3 + 4. Four groups of three make 12, and one group of four completes the 16. Changing the chord on the final group of four adds impact.

These are not triplets. They are sixteenth notes that only feel like triplets because of where the accents fall. Carnatic konnakol syllables such as takita are a helpful way to speak these groupings aloud.

The gallop

Take a beat of four sixteenths and remove the e, the second sixteenth. What remains sounds like a galloping horse.

No time signature?

Some music, such as certain Celtic or Bulgarian folk dances, has no easily counted cycle. You simply feel it and play it, while still relying on the pulse.

How to practise

  1. Listen to a song and find its pulse.
  2. Work out how many beats are in each cycle.
  3. Decide whether each beat is divided into two, three or four.
  4. Decide whether the eighth notes are straight or swung, keeping the tempo the same.
  5. Play the full grid, then remove notes or add accents to form patterns, using both hands independently, as a drummer would.

Remember the mantra: divide more, play less. Running scales fast in sixteenths divides more but does not play less, and needs little musical thought. Rhythm is the foundation of the house. Listeners may not talk about it, but they feel it.

Questions about this lesson

What is the difference between straight and swing eighth notes?

Straight eighth notes split the beat exactly in half. Swing delays the second note to roughly the two-thirds point of the beat, which gives a laid-back, bluesy feel.

How do you count sixteenth notes?

Count each beat as four parts: 1 e and a, 2 e and a, 3 e and a, 4 e and a. That gives 16 possible hits in a bar of 4/4.

What is the gallop rhythm?

Take a beat of four sixteenth notes and leave out the second one, the e. The three remaining notes sound like a horse galloping.

Is the 3+3+3+3+4 pattern made of triplets?

No. It is 16 sixteenth notes in 4/4, accented in groups of three with a final group of four. The accents make it feel like triplets, but the beat division stays at four.

Practise it

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