Rhythm Tip: Staying in Time (Bars)

It’s challenging for new players to stay in time with a jam track. Grooves in the blues are commonly repetitive (often repeating every bar). Listen to your jam track for its repetitive pattern to become familiar with it. If the pattern doesn’t repeat every bar, count each bar (1 2 3 4) and see if you can hear the larger pattern (commonly two bars). Your goal is to become familiar enough with the song to really hear/feal beat 1 of each bar. Highlight what note is played on beat 1 of each bar in your sheet music. As you play, listen carefully to the band so that you can align beat 1 of each bar in your sheet music with beat 1 of each bar in the backing track.