"He has no internal rhythm" - how can you teach this?

[toneknob]

Have you tried playing along to mp3s of the originals in rehearsal? Plug a phone or mp3 player into the PA, you could fairly easily EQ it (or alter it in audio software) to better isolate or emphasise the vocal. Too elite for him?

[NewDad]

To win a war, be prepared to lose a battle. Take your hands off, do the gig and let everyone learn the lessons.

[wateroftyne]

[quote name='chris_b' timestamp='1496099102' post='3308825']
He's not up to it. Get another singer.
[/quote]

Yup. Next topic, please.

[Kirky]

I once had to try and teach a guitar student how to tap his foot. Just a straight 4. He couldn't do it. I suggested he try skateboarding. There are some people with an otherwise decent sense of timing who can't get certain songs where the intro doesn't start on the first beat - The Killers' Human completely throws our otherwise competent singer. I just can't understand it, and certainly can't teach it. In my view if someone can't dance, even a little bit, they're never going to be able to play in instrument successfully.

[bazzbass]

every time he loses his timing, punch him in the face, hard

he will eventually learn to come in on time

[skankdelvar]

[quote name='tinyd' timestamp='1496134662' post='3308944']
If he thinks that being able to count up to 4 is "elitist" then I wouldn't hold out too much hope for him
[/quote]

I once worked with a drummer who thought it was 'elitist' of the rest of us to agree on the keys and chord progressions for the songs we played.

He thought it was 'showing off'.

[EliasMooseblaster]

Q: how can you tell when your lead singer's outside the front door?

A: (s)he can't find the key, and doesn't know when to come in...

Bad jokes aside, I know how frustrating this is. My old blues trio briefly had a dedicated vocalist, who began with great promise, but as time went on he became increasingly unable to remember his cue even for some really well-known covers. In his case, we later found out through mutual friends that he'd been pushing an awful lot of Columbian Marching Powder up his nose, which may have gone some way to explaining his apparent decline in musicality.

Fortunately he made it easy for us by forgetting to turn up to a gig one night, but if your man's refusing to even be taught then perhaps it's time to give him the push.

[phil.c60]

Used to do Gary Moore's "Midnight Blues" with a band a few years ago. The bass riff is a two bar riff and begins the song on it's own with just a hint of hi-hat to keep us all honest, followed by vocals, followed by guitar. Singer would persist in coming in on the second bar of the riff leaving me with nowhere to go: carry on and the whole song is a mess, or drop the second half of the riff and continue from there. Makes you sound like an idiot when you've been laying it down as a groove for the last eight bars.

Edited May 30, 2017 by phil.c60

[Japhet]

Funniest one I had was when our singer was struggling with a song. I said we could change the key to which he replied 'don't bother with that, I'll just sing it a bit higher', to which I replied 'as in out of tune'. He looked totally puzzled by this.

[FinnDave]

Our ex-singer often used to ask us to go up half a semitone. I actually bought a fretless just to piss her off!

[Woodinblack]

[quote name='NewDad' timestamp='1496141454' post='3309024']
To win a war, be prepared to lose a battle. Take your hands off, do the gig and let everyone learn the lessons.
[/quote]

Doesn't help though does it. For people that can't hear time, in fact for a surprising amount of 'musicians' you can do a gig, and bits of it were bottom clenchingly awful, like you want to curl up and die it's so embarrassing, and then they say "oh well that went ok didn't it?!"

[Norris]

Seriously though, you could try getting him to clap the rhythm as he sings solo

[Owen]

Rhythm Deaf. I have had many students over the years who were rhythm deaf. Last year and this year I have had one that try as I might I could not get them in the zone. I have tried physically tapping their feet, tapping their shoulder, dancing with them but all to no avail. If it is not there it is not there. Harsh but there it is. He will not find it in the next 3 weeks. Do the gig, film it and use it as evidence. Or cancel it and save the good name of the band. But do not imagine that the gig will work. It will not.

[Twigman]

A friend of mine's husband is rhythm deaf - he can't tell the difference between 4 on the floor and a waltz!

[Phil Starr]

If you are doing covers I suspect it's about not knowing the song as much as being rhythm blind. There's a huge difference between being not being able to do something and never being able to do it. The difference is practice

I don't think singing is as easy as it looks for most of us. I struggle to play bass and sing at the same time, especially when the chord changes don't line up with the sung line. Singers tend to be over confident, they can sing along with the original so they reckon they can do it to order. By now I'm imagining their confidence is shattered as it has been a topic of debate which probably doesn't help.

With three weeks to go I'd be thinking of cancelling TBH, but you want practical suggestions.

They have to listen to the songs over and over again at every available opportunity.

Get another band member to cue them in either by counting them in or by playing a cue or even giving them a nod or a wink.

Can they come in on time with a Karaoke track? If you can get backing tracks for your songs it gives them something solid to practice with.

Sit down with them one to one and go through the problematic songs listening to the originals, pick out what the music does just before they come in . Get them to listen out for that cue and practice that entrance only.

3 weeks isn't much time, all any of you can do at this stage is to try your best (who booked in a gig before you were ready?) once it is over your singist needs to decide if they want to spend the hours working on each song to bring them up to scratch. If not it might be time to move on.

[SpondonBassed]

[quote name='JimBobTTD' timestamp='1496118452' post='3308856']
I have counted with him (1-2-3-4; 1-2-3-4) and he is mostly ok with it. I think he understands them but has a bit of anti-elitism in him that makes him reject music theory.



There have been times when I have been unable to remain diplomatic and pedagogical and I have reminded him that he has the easiest part of the songs to learn.





I am starting to think the same. But with a gig in three weeks (and I shall be away on business for two), we do not have the time to do this.


Thanks for the comments. Any more ideas about how he can be taught?
[/quote]

Get him to practice clapping and counting the ones to a metronome. He's GOT to know where the one is.

[scalpy]

Discolexic- thank you Happy Jack. I cannot wait to get that on a student's report.

[Monkey Steve]

Had this exact problem with a singer in an old band. Also fairly inexperienced (but a really good front man with a good voice) and it seemed to be a combination of nerves (so he'd panic that he was going to miss his queue and come in early, or panic that he was going to come in too early and miss his queue) and not listening to what the rest of the band was doing - we all thought that the interplay between bass drums and guitar (with me on guitar) made all the queues completely obvious, but he would panic and come in at the wrong time, not always, but enough that the rest of us had to deal with it. The one time I've played lead guitar in a band and I've got a singer who thinks that the gap at the end of the chorus means it's time to sing another verse rather than having the guitar solo...

Fortunately he knew that he was prone to it and wanted to get better. If he did it in rehearsals then we'd stop, point out what he'd done wrong and make him start the song again, just to drill it into his head. Sometimes we'd just practice queues and counts for bits he struggled with, and point out what he needed to be listening for in order to get it right - sometimes we'd add a drum fill or something as a musical "NOW!". If it was a song that he couldn't get to grips with we came up with various counting in/wait for the nod arrangements. This usually got him on the beat and that's 90% of the battle.

If he was early or late in then we adjusted to him - always. The audience just want to sing along, they don't care that you are the moral victor by going into the chorus while the singer is half way through the verse. If he did come in on the wrong beat then adjusting wasn't always easy, so we'd catch up at the next big change. Or try to catch up...I can't say there weren't a few disasters but only ever for the odd song, and he'd get a stare from me or the drummer at the end and realise that he needed to keep his eye on the ball for the rest of the set.

So my advice is just to work really hard on getting them to fix it - never let them get away with it in practice and always discuss it with them so that they are aware that they need to be making an extra effort to learn the song properly. If it's the same place on the same song and they can't get it then someone in the band should turn to them, count and give them a nod (and practice that to make sure they understand whether the nod is the beat before they come in or to signify that you're on the last round of four before they come in on the one, etc).

And have an agreed coping strategy for when it does go wrong live so that you don't end up with the drummer and bass sticking to the original beat while the guitars and keys are adjusting to the singer.

[T-Bay]

There are some great suggestions on here but it comes down to one critical point- does he want to get better? If it comes down to a lack of effort on his part and he sees that as not being an issue then that could be much harder to address.

[Monkey Steve]

[quote name='T-Bay' timestamp='1496231227' post='3309712']
There are some great suggestions on here but it comes down to one critical point- does he want to get better? If it comes down to a lack of effort on his part and he sees that as not being an issue then that could be much harder to address.
[/quote]
This

The problem with the singer in my old band was made a lot easier to deal with because he knew he was getting things wrong and had to work on it. there was no trying to blame us for his mistakes or refusing to believe that he was at fault, and very open to trying different things to help sort it out. Possibly it was his inexperience that worked for us - he knew he was playing with a couple of much more experienced and better musicians and didn't want to be the weak link. We never got any "I'm the front man" attitude within the band (though he was very good at selling that on stage).

A mate's band has got the opposite attitude from an under performing bass player at the moment - refuses to believe that he's doing anything wrong despite their ongoing complaints and offers to help him work on his bass lines, and even after being told that he wasn't going to be playing on their album because he's not good enough, rather than pulling his socks up and making the extra effort he's instead dug his heels in and is making things worse by being tactically late for rehearsals so they don't get time to work on his bass lines (and generally behaving like an @rse - I genuinely think he's waiting to be sacked so can't see the point in making any effort).

So back to the OP, does the singer realise that they're missing their queues and do they want to do something about it?

[Dad3353]

Am I allowed to pedantically suggest that it should be 'cue', as in 'that's when to come in', rather than 'queue', where one waits in line to get served..? Just sayin', no malice intended.

[mep]

How many songs does he have issues with?

If you do the gig definitely record it for analysis later.

As others have said, agree copping strategy for when anything goes wrong. If you can keep the song going great.

Do the gig and take good look back at it.

Good luck.

[Monkey Steve]

[quote name='Dad3353' timestamp='1496233460' post='3309745']
Am I allowed to pedantically suggest that it should be 'cue', as in 'that's when to come in', rather than 'queue', where one waits in line to get served..? Just sayin', no malice intended.
[/quote]

you are completely correct, and any malice would be completely deserved...ironically enough it's a bad habit I've picked up from a song in that particular old band, covering old punk songs, and there's a line in Top Of The Pops by the Rezillos that we were learning that is "cue lights" that i could not understand because, I heard it as "queue lights" and asked the singer what the hell they were on about. he explained that it was "cue" and that i was clearly an idiot, and it forever because a running joke in e-mails, etc (OK not an especially funny one, you had to be there)...one that I had completely forgotten about until now and find that I'm still doing it...

[Dad3353]

[quote name='Monkey Steve' timestamp='1496234130' post='3309756']...and find that I'm still doing it...
[/quote]

WELL, DAMN WELL STOP IT..!

...

[spike]

If several band members need to come in in the right place, do they need to queue for a cue?