(It is fragile, like grass).
In classical chamber music one worries about coming in at the right time, together with the other players, right smack on the beat, boom. Jazz is looser about it - "the groove" is a more flexible concept. Classical musicians insist on precision because they want to substitute correctness for responsive listening, as if good manners makes everything OK. "If I play the 'right' notes at the 'right' time, I must be impeccable." No need to find a groove if one has metronomic precision. But this is really a cop out, musically lazy, and results in dull music.
Every time I count rests before an unconnected note I have entrance anxiety. That is why I love the idea of following a groove instead of the count or the other player. Whose groove to follow? Well, that is what musical communication is all about! Listen, find the groove, stay off the f--ing beat, and don't worry about the other player, who can take care of herself.
The midi beats us at impeccability any time - it is always absolutely correct, and boring. But it provides an excellent skeleton, if we don't squeeze the life out of ourselves trying to emulate it.
"The party starts where the worry stops." Duke Fightmaster
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If a groove is a repeating pattern of notes with time values that stay fairly but not necessarily precisely the same from one repetition to the next, improvisation is aided and abetted. The relative timing in the pattern need not be exact, but the pattern needs to be recognizable. Then you can get the feel of the pattern, and can weave decorations around it.
The basic beat may be explicit in the pattern or implied by it, but it is key to supporting improvisations and keeping them from descending into chaos. So the beat can be "stepped on", but not squashed beyond recognition.
Thus the computer rendition is best used, as Carl suggests here, as a skeleton -- or as the archetypal rendition of a pattern. This pattern can then be creatively modified or decorated in live performance. And even performers of classical music can at least use rubato to liven up a piece. The trouble with varying the tempo without using syncopation is that it can be overdone in a sense, making the music sound too sentimental or sappy.
I sometimes wonder -- maybe the first cool piano rag was a happy accident. Maybe it grew out of an attempt at rubato that went from sappy to sophisticated, merely by keeping the tempo steady in the bass and playing (with emphasis) the melody note on the "wrong" beat, sooner or later than "expected".
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