Groove is the physical reaction people have to music, the thing that gets somebody moving before they have thought about a single note. Making that happen is the bass player's prime directive. In this post we will look at what groove actually is, why Western pop music lives on beats two and four, and the counting exercise that lets you internalize the two-and-four pocket before you ever pick up the bass.
Groove is a physical reaction to music
The technical description I'd give to groove is a physical reaction to music. It is the want to dance, the feeling a person has when they are dancing, when they are lost and gone in that zone. Everybody knows what that is, and that feeling at that moment is groove.
As players, our job is to recreate that feeling within ourselves so that when people listen to us play they go to that place. People generally feel music before they listen to it, and if what you are doing does not feel like something, the notes are not going to save it.
Why it's the bass player's job
Groove is the single most important thing we do as bass players. It makes or breaks it. Everybody's worth as a bass player will ultimately come down to their ability to make the music feel good. That is our prime directive. That is our main job. Everything else is secondary, and I mean everything!
There is a practical side to it too. People are either going to want to play with you or not want to play with you because of the way you make the music feel, so giving this special attention is a good idea.
What Western pop music actually accents
Now for some of the technical aspects of groove. In 4/4 time, the rhythmic and harmonic strong beats are on beats one and three, and that part is the same everywhere. In American, or Western, popular music, though, one and three are not felt stronger. Two and four are felt stronger.
In European classical music, one and three are felt stronger, which is why classical music feels the way it does, one two three four. In Western pop music, two and four carry the feel, one two three four. Two is where you hear that snare drum, and that is where everybody dances.
In our own feeling of the music, and in our bass playing too, we've got to feel and accentuate what I call the two-and-four pocket. Pocket is musician slang for understanding what the groove strong beats are and doing them right. If you are in the pocket, you are doing it right.
The mental image I use is playing drums and hitting that snare with both hands, with a baseball bat, as hard as I possibly can. That is the level of intent that has to be behind beats two and four for the music to dance!
How to internalize it with your voice first
You cannot put groove through the bass if it is not inside you yet. The fastest way in is your voice, because the voice in this context is another instrument, and it is a good one to use because you do not have to think about how it works, you just use it. That lets you put all of your attention on the feel.
The practice works like this:
- Put on a track in 4/4 and count out loud, one, two, three, four.
- Emphasize beats two and four in the count, not just louder, but with more energy behind them.
- Remember that it is not just hitting two and four or saying "two" and "four" louder. It is feeling them stronger, and the energy you put into two and four forces them into being stronger.
- Once you've got the two-and-four feel locked in with your voice, transfer it to the bass. Play a simple line and keep feeling those twos and fours underneath it, the same way you were counting.
When the feel is inside you first, everything else almost takes care of itself. Play a very basic part without that energy underneath it and you would not want to stay and listen to a band that feels like that, but play that same basic part with two and four landing with real dance energy behind them and it grooves!!
Key takeaways
- Groove is a physical reaction to music, the want to dance. Creating that feeling is the bass player's prime directive.
- In 4/4 Western pop music, one and three are the rhythmic and harmonic strong beats, but two and four are felt stronger, and that is what I call the two-and-four pocket.
- Get the pocket into your voice first, by counting along with a track and emphasizing two and four, before you try to put it through the bass.
- Don't just hit two and four louder. Feel them stronger, and everything else almost takes care of itself.
Groove and time-feel are two of the fundamentals I teach, and they're tightly connected to feeling the pulse underneath whatever you're playing. If you want hands-on guidance getting the two-and-four pocket into your own playing, online bass lessons via Zoom are available.
