As a musician, it’s critical to play in time and not drift off the beat by rushing or dragging. But, that said, there are times when you can purposely use rushing or dragging to your advantage.
Fact is, you can create interesting musical effects by “leaning on the beat”, which means purposely rushing or dragging just slightly enough to still be playing in time.
Most up-tempo rock rhythms tend to lean forward on the beat in order to create a “driving forward” effect. By contrast, most slow blues rhythms tend to lean back on the beat in order to create a “falling backwards” effect. In between these two concepts would be playing straight up and down on the center of the beat.
Practice this technique by playing against a metronome, first landing your note a hair ahead of the metronome beat, and then a hair behind the metronome beat. Then, try it playing against jam tracks, leaning forward on the fast pieces and leaning back on the slow ones. You’ll see that this slight shift in note placement has a big effect on the rhythmic feel.
[photo: vonSchnauzer]