Groove is a physical reaction to music. Before a listener can feel it, you have to feel it yourself. This post unpacks what groove actually is, why the simplest part is usually the right part on a gig, and how the "groove denominator" mindset lets you walk into any musical situation and belong there.
What groove actually is
If somebody asked me technically to describe groove, I'd say it is a physical reaction to music. It is analogous to dance, the feeling a person has when they are dancing to a piece of music, when they are lost and gone in that zone. Everybody has been there, and that feeling is groove.
You can call it a feeling and be accurate enough, but technically it is a physical reaction. That is why, when you see people engrossed in a conversation with music playing in the background, talking about math or something completely unrelated, you look down and their foot is tapping on the table. They are not doing it on purpose. That is groove doing its job.
Same thing with little kids. Put a song on and they start dancing, and nobody ever taught them to do that! They are reacting physically to the music, because that is what groove is built to produce.
Why groove lives inside the player
Why does that matter? People generally feel music before they listen to it, so if it feels good to them you can generally reel them in, and if it does not feel good the notes are not going to save it.
As players, our job is to recreate that feeling within ourselves first, so that when people listen to us play they go to that place. The groove has to be inside you before it's inside anybody else.
I was watching a Victor Wooten show one time, and the drummer was JD Blair. He took a solo and did not play a note. Victor and the rest of the band had been throwing it down, and when it came around to JD he just sat behind the kit, nodding the pulse and holding the feel. Before too long you could see people starting to move with him, then people started clapping, and when the band came back in the whole room stood up and screamed. A standing ovation for a solo with no notes, all because the feel was really inside him!
The groove denominator
Once you understand that groove is a feeling you are generating, the next question becomes what you actually play on a gig, especially a freelance situation where you are showing up with people you have never met and there was no rehearsal.
This is where I use what I call the groove denominator, the simplest thing you can do for the music to still survive. That is what I am aiming at, not the coolest thing I can get away with, and in pop, funk, and rock especially it is almost always the right place to start.
For this clinic, I turned to Sean and said, "let's lay down a slow slinky funk." That was all I said. He started to ask me a follow-up question and I said, "no, I don't want to know anything, just play." I wanted to listen to what he did and build my part off of it. Sean and I have played together for about 27 years and I do not think we have ever actually rehearsed, we just show up to gigs and play. The groove denominator is the mindset that lets you do that, you listen first, you play the simplest thing that supports what you are hearing, and you let the song live.
Playing supportively, not completely
Your role on a freelance gig is not to play everything you know and everything you practice at home. It is to play supportively, for the song and for the people, so that you do not step over them.
All that stuff you practice at home is great for what I call "calisthenics", muscle memory, technique, ideas, and it is all necessary work. If you want people to keep calling you, though, you leave that stuff at home. The exception is a solo, and even then you get to pick your spots, because even during a solo people do not want to hear you working out ideas you have been practicing at home. They want to hear music. They want to have groove interaction and still feel the song, the structure. When I take a solo, I would much rather be playing over the form with the other musicians underneath me than doing something mindless on my own.
Same principle for drummers, and Sean makes this point too. Minimalistic, appropriate playing, which is why he focuses on a kick and a snare. If you can get comfortable playing just a kick and snare you can play any drum set that is put in front of you, and everything else is extraneous. That matters a lot at jam sessions where three drummers are sharing one kit. Phrase within the kick and snare, use accents, go to the kick drum instead of a tom, and you can sit down at any setup and speak your mind without second-guessing yourself.
Whether you're on bass or drums, the idea is the same. If you get the basics really solid, you will be able to sit in just about anywhere, and that is a great feeling!!
Key takeaways
- Groove is a physical reaction to music, a feeling that lives in the player first.
- People feel music before they listen to it. Generate the feel inside yourself before you try to put it through the bass.
- The groove denominator is the simplest part you can play and still have the song survive. On an unrehearsed gig, that is almost always the right place to start.
- Home practice is calisthenics, necessary work, but leave it at home. On the gig, play supportively and play the simplest thing the song needs.
Groove and feel are at the heart of the fundamentals I teach. For the more technical companion to this post, what groove actually is and why two-and-four is where it lives digs into the mechanics of the pocket itself, and the anatomy of a bass line applies the same denominator principle to line construction. For hands-on coaching on getting the feel inside you and letting it come through the bass, online bass lessons via Zoom are available.
Read the transcript
Okay, my name is Russ Rodgers, bass player around town. I also do a lot of teaching — I run the bass program at the Atlanta Institute of Music, as well as teach online nationally and internationally, and various places around the city. I've played with Sean — what, 25 years? 27. We were talking about it, yeah, back in the early '80s. He's always been one of my favorite drummers to play with, and actually where I actually learned what groove really was — not so much by talking about it, but just by experiencing it. Learned how to listen, learned how to simplify, which is really important.
So let's talk about something: what is groove? Anybody have any answer to that question? It's kind of like describing what the color red looks like, right? You point at something red. Feel — feel anything else? How would you describe it technically, if you were going to explain to somebody who had no idea what groove was, what would you say?
Those are components, right. That's a concept, though — can you put it into a conceptual explanation as opposed to components?
If somebody were to ask me technically to describe groove, I would say it's a physical reaction to music. It's analogous to dance — the feeling a person has when they're dancing to a piece of music. They're lost, they're gone, that zone. Everybody's been there, right? That feeling is groove. Groove is a feeling. You can say it in one word as a feeling just to describe it, but technically it's a physical reaction to music.
It's why, you know, when you see people engrossed in a conversation and there's music playing and they're talking about something completely different — they're talking about math or something — but you see their foot on the table, their foot's tapping. Or those of you who are parents and have had little children — you put something on the radio or a CD on, what do they do? They start dancing. Do you teach them that? No. Why are they doing that? It's because of the groove. It's the physical reaction to music.
And why this is important is that we need, as players, to recreate this feeling within ourselves, so that when people listen to us play, they go to that place. Because people generally feel music before they listen to it. So if it feels good to them, you can generally reel them in.
Groove is so powerful that you actually don't even need to play. I saw a drummer with Victor Wooten one time — JD Blair. He did a solo and didn't play a note, and got a standing ovation, just because his groove was so powerful. Everybody's like — you know, Victor Wooten and all the other guys are throwing it down, and then comes time with JD, and he just sat behind the drums and did this. Before too long you see everybody starting to move with him. Then people start clapping. The band comes in, and everybody stood up and screamed. His groove was so powerful that it transcended even the instrument itself. So it's a feeling you generate within yourself that really needs to happen here.
That's what I learned from playing with Sean. He didn't tell me this — he just, after getting poked in the back with a drumstick, you know, "hey man, you need to listen and open up." Through the course of teaching and playing with a lot of different people, I've kind of turned this into a way of talking about it that seems to work for a lot of people. But really, breaking things down to a conceptual understanding of what it is — why, what do I work on here — it really comes down to listening, and one thing I like to call the groove denominator.
When we were talking about what to play just a second ago, I said, "Sean, let's lay down a slow slinky funk." That's all I said. And we almost started talking, and I said, "no, I don't want to know anything, just play." I wanted to listen to what he did, and create that thing that we just played. We didn't rehearse anything. I don't think we've ever had to rehearse in our lives with each other. We've always just shown up to gigs and played.
That's really one of the big things about this clinic that Sean and I would like to talk about: what do you do in situations like this, where you show up and you've got to interact with musicians you may not have even met before? One thing when I play with folks — it depends stylistically, this can vary, this works more with pop, funk, and rock kind of stuff — I like to break things down to what I call the groove denominator. The simplest thing that you can do for the music to still survive.
Now, I'm speaking from a bass player's perspective, so I know we've got drummers out here — if I get too bassy, bring me back in. But that comes into the same thing with drummers as well, especially in the freelance world. When you're showing up to a gig you've never done before, with people you've never played with, your role is not to show up and play everything that you know and that you practice at home. It's to play supportively for the song and for the people, so you don't step over them. All that stuff you practice at home is great for what I call calisthenics — muscle memory, things like that — but if you want to work, you leave that stuff at home. You don't bring any of it to the gig, unless of course there's a small chance that you might get a solo, and then you get to pick your spots within the solo. But even during a solo, people don't want to hear you working out ideas that you've been practicing at home. They want to hear music. They want to have groove interaction and still feel the song, the structure. If I take a solo, I would much rather be playing over the form and with the musicians playing underneath me. I would much rather have Russ keep a groove up underneath me rather than just mindless — spirit, as I call it.
So yeah, when it comes to the drum thing: minimalistic, appropriate playing. That's why I focus on a kick and snare. I will take this rig to any gig as long as I can get away with it — and he has rock gigs, jazz gigs, Latin gigs, blues gigs. If you can get to where you're comfortable playing just a kick and snare, especially when you're showing up on these jam sessions or shows where three drummers are using the same drum kit — if you can get comfortable playing just a kick and snare, you can play any drum set. It doesn't matter what's in front of you. That stuff is extraneous. All you really need to focus on is getting your point across and phrasing within a kick and snare. You do it with accents, rather than going to a tom-tom you'll go to the kick drum and play linear things that way. Being comfortable within this — once you master that, you can show up on any drum set that's here and be able to speak your mind without second-guessing, having the confidence to be able to sit down in any situation knowing full well that you got this.
