timing

Please bear with me in this subject, I just started taking my playing into bands and groups. When I play my guitar with the band, I just wait for the drummers tempo and cue, then I start my run. I usually just feel the song within the pace the drummer set and continue from there on, yet sometimes I stray a bit off in my timing or rhythmn because I loose track of the drummers cue, I am actually counting that he was giving them in the first place...
Anyways, I would appreciate any recommendations about staying alert on timing during songs...

This can be a tuffie :) You should know the piece well enough to play it smoothly and steadily on your own, so that you are not totally dependant on the drummer for your timing. This is especially important in expressive music where you don't always play exactly on the beat. With Jazz, for instance, you typically play just ahead of the beat, while in Blues, you usually play just behind the beat.

If you wait to hear the drum before you play the note that falls on that beat, obviously you will be far too late. You have to get synchronised with each other so that your pick is approaching the string as his stick is descending toward the drum head.

It may take a while to get familiar with each other, but it does come with practice. If you take turns starting a tune, you get used to taking your cues from each other.

You must develope your own meter so to speak. I have notice while having a chance to play with some very influential guitar players that they all did the same thing. They hammer the beat with their feet hehe sounds funny but it works. I have been doing it for quite awhile now and found that it becomes second nature and synonimous with your playing. And this way if a meter mistake happens then you can always blame it on the drummer =) I blame him for most of my mistakes anyway =)But meter is the key to everything musical, and the steadier the better. I find most local drummers I run into have terrible meter. But anyway try carring your own meter off your drummer by tapping your footm, it will become second nature to you.

yeah, keepin the beat with your foot is pretty easy-

rule number

1. always keep the beat
2. always blame it on the drummer
3. always blame it on the bass player too

:)

HEHEHEHE,
needed to hear that, thanks! I sometimes do blame others for my own mistakes. I sometimes use my foot, yet I have discovered that for me keeping the correct rhythmn and more a less the timing I use my right hand. Its like the function of the foot goes instead into my hand, which in the end seems more logical since its the same hand that will strum the chords. I was practicing last week some songs we are going to perform soon and we "connected". I do not know how to put in words but we hitted every song well. And the curious thing, at least for me, was that I was not worried about making it perfect, I just enjoyed myself in the practice and the sound came by itself. After that we went onto a kind of blues jam with two other guitarist that came by and we blew the roof off of our school! I just hope to keep on playing like that, its just pure fun.