How Jimi Hendrix invented his own timing 

"The metronome is a powerful servant but a terrible master" - Sergei Rachmaninoff

It's cool when Jimi does it but when I play in my own timing I get comments like "You're off beat" and "You're out of the band".

Playing slower and faster tempos throughout a song is a part of playing dynamics we don't speak enough about

Hendrix doesn’t go out of time. Time goes out of Hendrix.

First you learn by following the rules, then you master by learning how to break the rules

Mitch Mitchell was the only drummer who could play behind Hendrix. For some, almost mystical, reason the two of them were in sync, and you can see Mitchell instinctively go wherever Hendrix took the tempo in just one beat. It's really pretty amazing when you pay attention to it.

yes, Hendrix controlled the beat. he did not let the beat control him

Jimi was all about the dirt, the soul, the pain, the blues. Computers got none of that.

"Learn the rules like a pro, so you can break them like an artist" - Picasso. Love this. Beato has been railing on quantizing for ages now. Really understanding how it's stealing the soul out of so much music.

To me "Little Wing" is the best thing Hendrix ever made. Absolutely beautiful, with great drums as well.

The beat isn't a dot, it's a circle you should land in. Not my words (Bird or Coltrane, I think) but when I read that it shifted my perception of timing and feel.

No different than classical composers using accelerando, ritardando, rubato, etc Jimi just brought that mindset to his music and absolutely killed it!

"It is perfect.... in a visual way." Yes!!!! So many new producers produce music with their eyes not their ears because they only know music in the box.

"In the pocket" is often mistaken to mean "on a steady beat" - but really it's about finding that perfect rhythm for every part of a song. The speed-ups and slow-downs are as much a part of a song's dynamics as volume lifts and drops, moments of compression, key changes, etc.

THANK YOU. As a producer, I've worked with hundreds (thousands?) of musicians at all different levels and it's amazing how many of them think that an engaging and emotionally-moving performance is the same as a technically correct one. It's not. It's about making the listener BELIEVE and FEEL what you're saying,

I've been a Hendrix fan for much of my life. I remember lying in bed in high school listening to midnight to 2 AM broadcasts of his concert recordings on Montana NPR. He helped me head down my own path musically. When I play, each beat is "1". The tempo and rhythm are fluid. Although I make little money from my music, the freedom, which Hendrix helped me to learn, is priceless.

So this video still got blocked, but after my appeal it got released today, YAYY! 🎉🎉 Also: any other guitarists we should check out next? Names below! 👇

When people say my timing's bad I'll just send them over to this video. Thanks for this!

Mitch Mitchell Was One Of The Best Drummers Ever!

I absolutely love how he picks out Joe B’s over produced, scripted and cold vibe to be the antithesis of Hendrix’ organic magic. Happiness

This is why I hate when people call Jimi's playing "sloppy"... like yeah his music sounds like it came from a soulful human and not a robot

When you played the metornome against Jimi, to me it sounded as though the music was playing at the same speed all the time, and the metronome was slowing down and speeding up. I wonder if anyone else experienced that illusion?

Paul Davids: "You don't have to quantize to sound good" Me, with very poor feeling of rythm: "I'm the next Hendrix!!" Good video Paul, really enjoyed it! :)

When Stephen Stills played with Jimi Hendrix he was reported as saying how he watched music just flow out of Hendrix in an effortless stream and I think that was a big part of Hendrix's genius and magic. Musicians who saw it were immediately aware that he was a special gift to the world.

This is how classical and folk musicians have been playing for centuries. Agogics and rubato are essential interpretational tools, as they help to convey feelings in a more natural and organic way. Great subject and video!

I don’t think anyone could have paired with his free flowing style better than Mitch Mitchell. Super musical drumming.

Fantastic. As a multi instrumentalist, composer and producer I have focused on doing precisely what Mr Davids said. I use both drum machines that are metronomic for certain pieces, others using real drums and others using hand drums percussion. Precisely to create differing feels. For me daily practice over and over until you can play it blind folded and THEN bring in the improvisation for edge and atmosphere and to create a WHEN. I start with improv and jamming ideas. Find the gems. Then select them , grow them and arrange. Practice the perfect version until I know it and THEN improvise again this time with a plan. My friends say it makes the tunes a journey which to me is why I LOVE psychedelic music like Hendrix, Syd Barrett solo and with the Floyd, the Doors, the Beatles, late 60's to late 70's Grateful Dead and Led Zeppelin, the last two being the best Live acts I have ever seen and they change tempo on you as well all the time. See also Parliament Funkadelic and Santanas' Woodstock performance!! I also love more modern music like Depeche Mode who made electronic music human and breathing, Talking Heads, Eno, Radiohead and Opeth.

The timing flaws and imperfections are part of the beauty when it comes to real human flow. It's not about the timing mistakes but more about humanizing the feel. Human timing is not as demanding as mechanized ones. Metronomes and perfect timing can be at times too rigid or robotic. Sometimes it's "more" about the spaces, gaps, margins and silence in between the notes or beats that makes the music breath. But naturally, the notes and beats will get all the attention.

I was listening to this eating some food I. The kitchen and my mom goes “wow he has such a great voice” u just stole my moms bro

Jimi's timing: Way ahead of everybody else. Left too early.

As a drummer, I grew up jamming Hendrix with my dad on guitar because that's what he liked. Really expanded how I viewed making and playing music.

This is a brilliant, ear-opening video that breaks down and explains what I’ve heard all my life but didn’t have the words or know-how to communicate. Thank you for this.

1967: People drop acid play music and expanding their minds 2020: People try to analyze what the stoners made back then

Dear Paul, this video said everything I've been trying to tell our orchestra for months now. Thank you, I think I love you, or at least your great ideas.

i always come back to this video, it pleases me so much the way you talk about this, maybe one of the best videos about music in youtube, thank you so much again

Fluctuating rhythm is great, but like how you learn music theory so you can forget about the notes and get on with playing, you practice to a metronome so you can later forget about the beat and get on with playing. Also, besides making your ability to groove more powerful, practicing with a metronome will absolutely increase both your precision and speed. It does this by eliminating the guess work. That said, it's good to play without one often too.

In the 80s I wanted to be a producer. I studied to become a recording engineer and worked part time in a studio. But I quickly became disenchanted with it, and eventually fell out of it. I had this old school vision that a good record was made by recording a good band playing together in the room. I think when a band has a great song but they play their individual parts separately over a click, some of the magic of group performance is lost. While I know there is value in structuring recordings so that parts can be changed at will, there's also value in allowing bands to provide that special momentum to a performance that can only be achieved as a group, playing together.

I really enjoyed your appreciation of Jimi's unique style and sense of timing. The "feel" he put into his songs was remarkably refreshing. Thank you for explaining another facet of what made him such a great musician.

Some of the beautiful things about metronomes in the creation of art? They taught us bad habits and rigidity. Jimi Hendrix Metronomic “mistakes” are exactly what made some of my most memorable songs of this master of guitar-ology! Meaning he created something beautiful. Our hearts are not always beating the same amount of beats each minute they change. And that is ok. That is ok to create imperfect and beautiful things!

Yes. Jimi's musical journey on this piece travels through tempo changes as he tells the story, same as the great classical composers did.

I saw John Frusciante saying something similar. On Stadium Arcadium he consistently tried to break free from the metronomic cage, by subtly slowing down and speeding up within measures. I think mastering basic timing, with a metronome comes first, THEN you can play with the timing as you feel it.

The push and pull of the groove is the soul of music. All the best artists do it instinctively and a quantizing is killing that soul. EVH was a master of that, as was Jimi and of course Keef and Charlie Watts! List could go for days. Great video as usual

Amazing...I was watching a Hendrix concert this week end and I commented to my friends It must have been very hard to be a drummer for Hendrix and they had no idea what I was talking about. He had his own sense of timing and to me it was obvious.

3 things invigorated my playing & got me to reach a new level... 1. Neutral Milk Hotel made me pick up my furst guitar - acoustic 2. Hendrix playing the Star Spangled Banner made me get an electric. 3. Coronavirus made me actually practice and learn scales ~queck~

Great Video, I would know this as 'Rubato' as known in classical music to allow expressive musical interpretation - but even Rubato starts from a place of being able to play within/to the beat - the fact that the band all play in the groove just highlights what great musicians they were. :)

This is something we've been working on this last year. We used to hand-splice every drum in our mixes and line them up to the grid. It's killed some of our singles! It's both groovy and liberating to just let the song be what it wants to be (: Love this video. Sharing with musician friends.

after 50 years of drumming, i suddenly feel a whole lot better, thanks to you, Paul.

Now that we quantized the whole music industry, we start to recognize that off tempo is cool, so we start playing off beat and invent programs that dequantize your music. Typical human.

When learning to use an EQ plugin, many professionals say something like, “Close your eyes and use your ears to adjust the EQ.” You can do the same thing with the tempo track in your DAW. Go ahead and record the tracks “on the grid” because it’s easier and more efficient. Then close your eyes and adjust the tempo track to make the song fit in your pocket. While working in PreSonus Studio One, I nearly always adjust the tempo track to create a better groove (e.g., slow during the intro, speed up a little during the verse, speed up again during the chorus, etc.). Doing this in Studio One is simple. Give it try.

Another interesting well done video Paul! Thanks!

This was brilliant, bravo!!! Excellent reflection, your good my friend.

For me this is one of the reason why I really don't like recording and playing separately. It just kills the whole feel and vibe of the music.

It’s rare that a person’s talent, skill and ability to teach or instruct are all at such high levels of utility. Always wonderful to hear from you, Paul.

Thank you for articulating so well that which i have been feeling for so long. Another excellent video

Ive been trying to Record Guitar like Jimi For years since the beginning of my music Journey and I never could figure out why my Recordings where OFF TIME everytime I thought I was just incompetent. Thank you for making this video and showing me that its not just me

Meshuggah recorded their latest album live because they felt their previous two albums felt "too perfect" being more reliant on computers. They wanted the honest "push and pull" of people getting a bit behind or a bit ahead. Of course I think they still played almost perfectly in time because they are living machines.

There are two types of people that can't keep time. People like Jimmy Hendrix that makes it sound good, and there's me.

When we communicate with speech we have a natural rhythm which fluctuates according to what we are saying and the emotion and intent behind it. We naturally speak faster when we get excited, angry or passionate. On the other hand we speak more slowly when we want to emphasise an idea, express calm etc. Music as a language is no different. There is a place I'm sure for pure gridded music but I do believe that when music sounds most natural to us is when the tempo naturally fluctuates according to the emotions being expressed - just like in speech. GREAT VIDEO :)

great video Paul!

Blues guitarists have been playing with tempo to match their moods like this, and even adding in extra beats or whole bars to match the lyrics they want to sing, since at least the 1930s. And Jimi was definitely aware of those guys. Which is not to denigrate him in any way, no doubt it took some courage for musicians like Hendrix to stand up to producers who insisted you play in perfect metronomic time. He actually *did* invent so many sounds, styles, etc., he doesn't need credit for "inventing" something that had been around for over 30 years.

“Stretching or compressing time” is exactly the phrase Frusciante spoke of in regards to his playing on Stadium Arcadium.

Great video Paul. Amazing insight and very eye-opening. Cheers 🥂

Thank you so much for this i really needed to this about rhythm and timing right now Cheers man have a great day

Hendrix, Nirvana, The Clash, Howling Wolf, Keith Richards... my favorite music is chaotic and beautiful. Classical music too by the way, no chorus, no verse, constant tempo changes.

Thanks Paul, i was wondering if it was just me that thought Hendrix has strange timing. Listen to steve ray vaughn playing the same songs and you will hear how it sounds more in the pocket but less groovy. Great video! Wondering how the drummer felt about Jimi’s timing

Loving your vids, keep 'em coming

Thanks Paul! That was mind-opening!

"I AM the click track!" - Ringo Starr

One thing Hendrix really understood intuitively was how dynamics can express emotion... We all know how you can use dynamics in pitch, attack, and volume to deliver this but the programmers that created DAWs just presumed that time as in physics is a constant that has to remain locked down .. If you think of a song as a snapshot of emotion... then think about human emotion and it's physical impact on the body then locking a song into a single metronomic progression is folly. That is why jazz blues and rock and modern music captured popular imagination ... They were a break away from more traditional locked down classical forms... full of sensuality and feeling. Think of how your body reacts to organic stimuli... how your heart rate increases and decreases from slow when relaxed to fast when excited ... and you are starting to get the picture. With humans in a band, it is possible for the drummer to follow the guitar player and beat match him which is obviously what was going on with Hendrix... A computer is made up of logic circuits... a load of silicon switches that are either on or off... there is nothing in between the two ... no room for shade. Good news is, that for the very same reason, no matter how advanced they get, computers will never be able to take over because they will never have the imagination to envision doing so. Only us humans are capable of that level of invention.

we recorded our 3rd studio album with ,no metronome ,we did all 3 this way and it always came out great ,lots of feeling.great mix of 2 guitar styles together,great video,

I haven't watched any of your videos in awhile. I must say that you always made great videos, but this one seems very much in YOUR pocket. Thanks for this!

When I saw this, I thought about how blues guys like Robert Johnson dropped and added beats. But, tempo talk is even better. I remember a high school band exercise of starting a song slow and gradually speeding up to a furious pace and then gradually slowing it down to the slow start. Playing the tempo as a group. We should practice by click to discipline our timing, but play freely with a group to feel the groove. Rick Beato said the the computer killed music for the reason of the grid.

When you have a good relationship with band members, its almost like a brotherhood, like family, that gives you complicity with the band, like bonham and JPJ in the song remain the same, its like telepathy. In that mood the tempo/time works in another level

Excellent break down. The Qwest Love analogy was spot on. I think when you're great enough to play spot on you have the wonderful creative option to deviate from that timing framework, and still sound amazing, even tho the timing is "all over the place"... inmho this is one of the marks or a truly passionate and gifted musician.

love your lessons and analysis :)

I always loved this about Hendrix and loved every minute of it

This applies to poetry, film, music, etc. Most art forms now suffer from this metronome plague.

Beautiful episode ❤️

Your comment on Reddit nailed it. A great musician plays in his own pocket, not THE pocket… and when a full band, like Jimi Hendrix Experience can do it together, it is truly magical. It taps into our subconscious and emotions like no metronome or grid ever could. Which goes a long way to explaining why so much pop music today is so damn boring. Thank you so much for making this video, Paul. Us “old school” musicians are with you on this!!

Is it driving anyone else crazy that he has to use a slightly higher pitch version of this song so the evil people that own jimi's music dont take the video?

really cool- it seems the speeding up and slowing down coincides with ascending and descending melodic runs- enhancing the build and release of sonic tension

valid points! loved the bit from Questlove !

Thank you. This was a great video on an important subject.

I think this is why so many of those who dislike Hendrix in the guitar community say he's "sloppy". They're the ones who are on the click, probably playing far more technical stuff rather than groovy pocket stuff.

His studio improvised Bold as Love take 21 instrumental is my favourite. It always feels like an updated story of my life with every listen. He truly colours my current and fading memories.

Wow Paul. Your best pleed ever! Thx! Never take 'the feel' out of the music!

Thanks Paul for having made this video. What you said was really touching. That "human" touch makes an awful lot of difference.

I never listened to jimi hendrix but this was the perfect introduction to him.

Rick Beato has a video where he takes one of John Bonham's beats and fits it into a grid. It's quite amazing how the grid rips the soul out of it, especially hearing it just after the original beat.

this was everything I needed right now, thank you sm

i love your videos, you make them with so much effort and i appreciate all of it, the information and theory you bring is very interesting. i make music for 11 years now, so i now some of your stuff already, but its awesome how you explain it and that you do it in general, for people who never heard about it and start making music, thats what i appreciate too :)

But seriously folks... It actually depends on the interplay between the drummer and if he is following the bass player or the guitarist. 99% of bands the drummer & bass are locked in in pocket and the guitarist follows the groove. Players like Hendrix, Page, Beck, and Garcia are setting the time and the drummer locks into them and not the bass player. To be able to do this live is a real pain and all players need to be tight as hell otherwise the song will fall apart. A great example of this is Black Dog by Zeppelin. This song sounds super-loose but it is actually the band playing in two different time signatures with the drums slightly behind the guitar. This is the stuff that makes a band great.

He's just bending the space-time continuum when he bends a note duh

Thank you! Finally someone who gets it. I record the ryhtm section, no click, nothing. The band learns the material and speeds up and slows down like we had a conductor. So much more musical energy and feel.

This is one of your best videos so far.

The reason I love Steve Howe, and Jimmy Paige is their ability to do change ups, at the most unexpected moments, so that it was always catching me off guard, making it complex, and interesting. Listen to the guitar solo near the middle of the song, from "Yours Is No Disgrace" from Yessongs, it is a perfect example of total improvised sonic deliciousness.

It's pretty tragic how heavy-handed the Hendrix estate is where ALL his songs are pulled from youtube. Basically it makes his music all but inaccessible to new listeners and generations.

Wonderful insightful video

You are making a great and important point! Could not agree more. Thank you!

Personally, songs with some of these "imperfections" can actually be "perfections" in my opinion. It makes the song more blended, and more REALISTIC, and less robotic! Nothing wrong with a smooth studio mix, but "feeling" is not always tic toc tic toc....