Pointers for foot tapping with a 6/8 time song?

Discuss the JustinGuitar Lessons & Songs App
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RE: songs in 6/8 and tapping your foot on each and every beat.

I must disagree with the suggestion to tap on all six beats. It is more than enough to tap two times per bar on the 1 and 4.

House of the Rising Sun is 6/8.
Watch this footage between 14 and 20 seconds.

Alan Price (keyboards) gets the rhythm feel by tapping his foot six times once or twice only but as soon as he has found the groove he moves to tapping on 1 and 4 only.

The tempo is too quick to tap six times per beat. It would be physically demanding and too much unnecessary work.

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Worth checking out this thread which relates to the query on the Justin Time Trainer and includes a link to a good guide on setting the metronome for 6/8 by @Richard_close2u Metronome help on time trainer app - problems with 6/8

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Thank you for chipping in Richard. I will study the video you shared. Maybe this is a topic that Justin could address in his 6/8 lesson, or in de strumming SOS course. I think it’s quite confusing, at least for a novice in need of clear cut guidelines such as myself. No doubt, once experience grows, you can build on that and just do what works for you.

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Thank you, will check it out!

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RE: the screenshots from the App. I have annotated them.

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This Year’s Love: The numbers 1 and 2 above the count in are not strictly accurate as they should read 1 and 4. You could take them as indicators of when to tap your foot for the 1st and 2nd time as annotated above.

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Hey Joe: Similarly 1 and 2 are not strictly accurate. This is 4/4 so you do want to think of tapping on all four beats. Many chord changes happen on the counts of 1 and 3 which fits with those beats being labelled on the count in.

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Wild Thing: The count in is accurate. The larger dots show the beats and the smaller dots show the ‘ands’ between. This shows 8ths.

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Thank you for your time Richard, very informative indeed (videos and all linked posts).

With regard to original question: based on your information I will tap my foot on the big (blueish) dots.

Case closed, but please consider adding to the curriculum more explicitly :wink:

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Thanks to al who have taken their time to help me out. Gotta love the team spirit here at JG!

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Richard @Richard_close2u

I bow to your better judgement on the advice on this, all I would say I prefer to know where the beat is and H of RS is about 120 bpm I find tapping at that tempo ok and I guess you have to go what you feel comfortable with.

Here is an interesting point, as well as strumming I am also learning it as my first finger picking song using the simple pattern in Module 11. It is early days and I am not tapping my foot at all. I think keeping the pattern going and changing chords is taking all of my attention, but what beat should you tap on?

Michael

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Well spotted Richard @Richard_close2u
The only thing is that I don’t think Alan Price is a beginner musician.
But nevertheless it is interesting that he changes his pattern.
Michael