Introduction (1990) by Marvin
Blickenstaff, Editor
emember teachers; beat your children!"
was the facetious yet profound summary statement at the end of
a rhythm workshop given by Phyllis Weikart, renowned specialist
on movement and rhythmic training. The admonition was intended
to jolt us into the realization of a fundamental principle of
music education: the basis of rhythmic training is to provide
our students with experiences of pulse (beat). Dr. Weikart
further emphasized the importance of that basic pulse experience
by warning its of impending rhythmic problems if we focus too
early on subdivisions of the beat. Most of us can observe, even
in our more advanced students, the fundamental importance of pulse.
If rhythm is unsteady and unconvincing, momentary concentration
on other performance concerns has distracted the mind, ear and
body from the ongoing structural beat.
In this department of KEYBOARD COMPANION dealing with rhythmic
training, the question "What is your first concern when teaching
rhythm to beginners?" is posed to six outstanding piano teachers,
all of whom teach beginning students. As you read their responses
you will note a consistent agreement with Dr. Weikart's "beat
your student" statement, which might be loosely translated
"provide you students with total body experiences of pulse."
Article (1990) by Joanne Smith
he most important elements of musicality
which need to be addressed in beginning piano study are those
of a student's affective and rhythmic response to the sounds they
are creating. We too often hear advanced pianists who possess
a high level of technical proficiency and rhythmic accuracy and
yet we come away from their performances unmoved and disappointed.
What is the missing ingredient? In most cases it is the absence
of a strong sense of inner pulse and aural responsiveness to the
sounds that are unfolding. Occasionally we hear a pianist whose
performance is musically colorful, yet the disjunct emoting denies
the listener any sense of rhythmic unity or organized architectural
framework. Both of these problems could have been avoided by teaching
rhythm at the beginning level of study with a focus on the development
of the student's physical and aural response The time to begin
this process is clearly at the beginning when the child's sensory
response to music is still alive and well.
The topic of rhythm is central to the development of musicality. How appropriate that it is addressed in this first issue of KEYBOARD COMPANION! My response to the question, "What is your first concern when teaching rhythm to beginners? " is that I must initially resist the urge to teach rhythm to beginners (i.e., note values and counting) and, instead, create a variety of activities which will enable children to experience the active pulse and rhythm which is already present in their bodies and ears!
Every child comes to us with a background of rhythmic experiences. They have chanted, sung and danced to the meter of nursery rhymes, tapped their toes to the beat of music on radio, TV, records, and video, and felt the powerful pulse of marching bands and rock music. In our preparatory department Music Aptitude Testing program, we have seen a very high level of rhythmic and aural response in all average-age beginning piano students year after year. Beat and pulse are inside of them, and they are able to respond to music verbally, aurally, and physically, We need to take our cue from these three basic avenues of sensory response and continue to include singing, dancing, tapping, and listening activities in our piano classes. We can capitalize on the musical awareness which is unconsciously present in the child and then define it in terms which will enable rhythmic understanding of notation. Sing a lot! Singing establishes pulse, mood, tempo, symmetry, dynamics, shape, phrasing, a connection to the ear, and finally the internalization of the sounds that they are about to create. Our goal is that children hear, feel, and respond to what their eyes see on a printed score.
We love to play a game in class called "Where's the Beat?" We listen to anything from a piece that they are about to play, to "Happy Birthday," or a Mozart symphony. The object is to find the downbeats (tapped with an exaggerated downward gesture). Once the big beats have been established, we discover the lesser beats by snapping our fingers in an upward direction (3/4 becomes Tap, Snap, Snap.) The result is an understanding of meter and full measure counting.
The presentation of carefully planned and energetically executed rhythmic and aural response activities is probably the most important task which we should consider when planning the teaching of our beginning students. We can sleep well at night knowing that their cognitive understanding is solidly grounded in an affective response to the music itself.
Let's rephrase the initial question. instead of "teaching rhythm to beginners" how about "How can we tap the musical resources which already exist in our students?"
JOANNE SMITH is Associate Professor of Piano and Piano Pedagogy, and director of the Piano Pedagogy Laboratory Program nt the University of Michigan. She is completing her 35th year of teaching beginning piano students and says that she cannot think of anything she would rather be doing.
Article (1990) by Barbara Wasson
y first concern when teaching rhythm to
a beginner is to establish a feeling for a steady pulse or beat.
Young children can be helped to develop this feeling of pulse through rhythmic games, marching or clapping to music, clapping while walk-ng, using rhythm instruments accompanied by strongly rhythmic music, and even clapping and/or swinging with a metronome. The feeling of steady pulse is an awareness that probably develops best in a group situation where everyone claps or marches together. The children who do not do this easily can learn from those who do it more naturally.
With many students whose gross motor coordination is not particularly good, this process may take several weeks or even months. It seems to have little to do with intellectual development or maturity since many adults have difficulty achieving fluency and case with some of these activities. In fact, a very inhibited student, accustomed to planning every move, may have the most difficulty. It is the teacher's task to find as many ways as possible to help the student acquire this feeling for steady pulse.
Ideally, the student should have developed this feeling for pulse before attempting to play a musical instrument. Most teachers of music classes for pre-school youngsters spend much time and effort developing a strong rhythmic sense using Orff, Kodaly, Dalcroze, and other similar techniques. Children who have had these early music experiences usually progress much faster in formal piano lessons.
Unfortunately, many beginning piano students (and their parents) are so eager to learn to play a piece that they are impatient with activities that are not obviously connected to that specific assignment. Many teachers either do not realize the importance of general rhythmic training or give in to the student's inclination to do what is most immediately gratifying.
Along with establishing a steady pulse, the student needs to learn that long notes must be held while maintaining a feeling of pulse. One of my own early teachers got this across to me by comparing the pulse to a picket fence with its evenly spaced pickets. On the fence are some clothes hung out to dry. Some pieces of clothing take up two pickets (half notes), some take up three (dotted half notes), and some take four (whole notes) while many take only one (quarter notes). Meanwhile, the pickets are always the same distance apart. Such an image may not work for every child, and the intellectual comprehension and memorization of time values should not be considered a substitute for rhythmic feeling. However, time values most be learned and consistently applied in a strongly rhythmic setting.
The teacher can use whatever form of counting works best for him or her. Many teachers use the French time names, others use one for quarters, one-two for halves, etc. Some count by saying the note value: hold that whole note, two-eighths, etc. Hazel Cobb gives a different kind of pie name for each rhythm pattern, e.g. a quarter is pie, two eighths are ap-ple, a triplet is choc-o-late, etc The syllables of a child's name can often be utilized to teach many rhythm patterns.
No matter what system is used in the beginning, eventually the counting of beats must be learned and used. All of the methods have merit, provided the teacher, by his/her example, makes sure that the rhythmic pulse is consistently preserved.
BARBARA WASSON has been codirector,
with her husband, of the Wasson Piano Studios in Dayton, Ohio
since 1946. She has also taught Piano Pedagogy at the College-Conservatory
of Music of the University of Cincinnati and at Wright State University.
Article (1990) by Janell Whitby
he beginners that I teach are four or five
years old. They meet once a week for 50 minutes in small classes
of six or seven children. After I make friends with the children,
my primary objective is that they follow and imitate me. With
the aid of a "copycat" puppet, the children catch musical
sounds and throw them back to me. After finding our heartbeat,
we patsch (when standing, pat the sides of your legs with
both hands; when sitting, pat the tops of both legs.) music's
heartbeat to "hear the drummer, keep a steady beat."
(song by Ann Collins) With the repetition of each verse, we feel
the steady beat in our feet, and then in out hands
Immediately, I show them my special Indian drum that "talks" to children. Mothers join us in a large circle as we walk around the room to the drum's direction. Sometimes he says, "walk" sometimes he says "stop." With each stop, I affirm the children's good listening. The teacher always leads the parade, and selects a very slow tempo so that each drum beat matches her foot step.
The next copycat game is to tap and say body parts in rhythm For example, "head, head, nose, nose." We do this several times, always different body parts. Then, in the same tempo, I tap my left shoulder with my right hand as I chant, "short, short, lo-ong". When saying lo-ong, my right hand moves down the entire length of my arm. The children and their mothers repeat the "short, short, lo-ong" pattern as I improvise at the piano. I then draw a picture of this pattern on the chalkboard, and the children copy my drawing:
It is important to elongate the enunciation of the word "lo-ong" as you demonstrate the feel of "lo-ong" by moving your right hand from the top of your left shoulder all the way down to your left hand.
"Tugboat" by Lynn Olson (recording of Songs from Our Small World) introduces a pattern of four shorts with the words "chug, chug, toot, toot." The children love to march around the room singing the song and stopping to play the rhythmic motif at the proper time. A two-fold goal is accomplished: aural identification of the rhythmic pattern, and moving to a steady beat.
During the following weeks, I introduce two other patterns: long, short, short; and long, long. These are always tapped on the shoulder to a piano accompaniment, and then drawn on the chalkboard in line notation. When the children can actually feel the difference between short and long, the symbol and name of quarter and half note are introduced. As they draw the line notation on the chalkboard I show them a new way to notate the sound directly above their line drawing.
As time passes, the short and long rhythmic dictation changes to additional patterns using "tah" sounds. I clap and verbalize a four-beat measure they repeat it to me. I always select one pattern to clap while I play a melodic accompaniment on the piano. We sing songs which have repeated rhythmic motifs. (Songs from our Small World) I use the association of the words to identify the patterns to hear, play, and write. These patterns become rhythm flashcards that we use for various games.
Reinforcement of steady beat is experienced through movement in a variety of ways: patsch to singing; marching around a floor keyboard mat; moving to songs in Hap Palmer's Feel of Music record; passing a ball or bean bag around the circle to music (Robert Abramson's Rhythmic Games tapes).
With spaced repetition of these activities over a period of time, the children internalize a steady pulse and obtain a rhythmic vocabulary that allows them to read music.
JANELLWHITBY teaches and directs an independent studio of 170 students in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Specializing in preschool through elementary intruction, her clinician experience includes the 1989 KTV-III teleconference for music teachers sponsored by Baldwin Piano and Organ Company.
Article (1990) by Jane Magrath
atch the members of the audience at a concert.
Although they may be listening intently, you will discern slight
movements to the music. Observe children in an elementary school
chorus. They move to the music as they sing. Watch a percussionist,
whose very heartbeat is made of pulse. He cannot remain motionless.
If music-making is convincing and successful,
it implies movement.
At the very core of fulfilling musical performance is the sensation of PULSE. The pulse is the heartbeat of music, and that is the beginning for musicians, young and old, in musical interpretation and in learning to play the piano. Establishing pulse must be initiated at the first lesson, since pulse is the basis for all rhythmic playing.
To learn to feel the pulse, the beginner should
From the pulse, a rhythmic framework can be established. It is from pulse that the student learns to feel the meter.
Pulse can be introduced in many different ways. It should be reinforced at every lesson, both as a separate physical activity when the student is not at the keyboard, and through gesture at the keyboard. It should also be established by teacher and student (not necessarily aloud) before the student begins to play every piece. During a beginner's first lesson, he learns to swing his arm, usually one arm only, with the body slightly turned toward that arm and with the other arm hanging loosely at the side. The teacher might play three short pieces for the activity. Then the teacher and student might touch various parts of their own bodies in pulse to music - the head, shoulders, knees, etc A group of students standing might make a "train"with their arms on the shoulders of the person in front and tap the pulse on the shoulders from left to right - strong, weak, strong, weak. Numerous activities are available for beginners to express the feeling of pulse.
Establishment of pulse must precede "counting." Does the voice reflect the pulse, or is it merely a recitation of numbers? A real culprit in the playing of many students maybe that rhythm is counted without a sense of pulse.
Try to imagine a great piano work being performed without pulse. It seems inconceivable, of course. Now imagine several pieces from Level I of a method you teach and imagine them performed without pulse. This may not be so difficult since many students perform that way from week to week.
Relate the music to its heartbeat. Feel and experience the pulse with the student. Sing with the pulse, count with the pulse, move with the pulse, play with the pulse, teach rhythmic counting and meter based on the pulse. It is essential that we give our students this musical advantage and benefit.
JANE MAGRATH is Associate Professor at the University of Oklahoma where she teaches applied piano and piano pedagogy. A specialist in upper-intermediate and lower-advanced teaching literature, she is known nationally for her presentations of workshops, solo performances, and writing for various journals.
Article (1990) by Suzanne Guy
f, with George Gershwin, "you got
rhythm," you have much more than "oom-pah-pah"
in your waltz. There is a current of electricity that flows
through your music, much like the powerful current of air a symphony
conductor generates as his motions obscure barlines into a seamless
whole.
Eloise Ristad claims that "there is a dancer in all of us" just waiting to escape. My first concern in teaching rhythm to a beginner is to awaken that dancer to be moving instead of sitting still on the bench. I have tapes of a dozen intensely rhythmic compositions. The new student first hears the third movement of Brandenburg Concerto No. 2 by Bach. Who could resist an energetic bounce or two in response to such a festive opening? The wide-eyed novice is encouraged to imitate gestures by the teacher as well as to improvise at will, from jumping jacks to heel taps to hand claps and goose steps. The energy inherent in cheery Baroque allegros is contagious. A contrasting calmer selection is Bach's "Jesu, Joy Of Man's Desiring" with organ and choir. When the chorale enters, the new student might bend from the waist, swinging to the cadence of quarter notes.
The beginner has learned thus far to hear and to feel it - the next step is to see it. It is obvious that rhythm exists in music, but there is also motion in something as still as a painting, especially in many of the works of Edgar Degas. I show some of his portrayals of dancers and ballet scenes to the student and ask about the use of light and shadow to create motion.
Gershwin wrote "I Got Rhythm." When does one "get" rhythm? Certainly the student's early adventures in sensing rhythm are crucial in that cumulative process. Then remember Gershwin's second phrase, for it is the payoff: "I got music - Who could ask for anything more?"
SUZANNE GUY is an independent piano teacher in Annandale, Virginia. She taught piano pedagogy at the Peabody Conservatory from 1985-88, was a participant in KTV-III, and is a frequent clinician for state conventions, keyboard conferences and music teacher organizations.
Article (1990) by Barbara English
Maris
hoa! Hold everything! Was that meant to
be a "loaded question?" Since I do not believe that
we need to "teach rhythm" to anyone, my first concern
would be to rephrase the question. Let's begin with the assumption
that one cannot breathe without having a natural sense of rhythm.
One cannot be alive without being rhythmic.
Then let me start again, responding to a different question: "What
is your first concern when teaching the notation of rhythm
to a beginner?"
My first concern is to determine what kinds of rhythmic experiences the student already has had and what rhythmic skills already have been developed. Then - before dealing with quarter notes, half notes, stems, bar lines, time signatures, and all the other symbols that represent notated rhythmic patterns found in printed music - I want the student to have a high level of comfort in moving rhythmically, responding to a regular pulse, understanding the concept of recurring patterns of sound in time, and controlling motions that take place in space over a period of time.
In preparation for understanding the notation of rhythmic patterns, it is important for the student to have experienced the regularity of pulse as a part of many physical activities involving the body and voice- These physical activities include:
| being rocked | swinging |
| being petted | singing |
| swaying | clapping |
| waving | bouncing |
| tapping | sweeping |
| crawling | walking |
| skipping | dancing |
| jumping | playing pat-a-cake |
| hearing rhythmic verses | |
| counting sets of numbers |
In preparation for learning to read rhythmic patterns, it is also important for the student to have experienced many coordinated activities that involve the entire body moving in time, through space. For example:
throwing a ball
rolling down a hill
climbing steps
going down a slide
turning somersaults
splashing in a tub or pool
In preparation for learning to control rhythmic patterns, it is important for the student to have experienced regularity of pulse at a variety of energy levels which reflect different expressive moods. For example:
quiet, calm, gentle, peaceful
heavy, slow, ponderous
elfin, light, tiny spritely, comical
full, energetic, lively, proud
sneaky, cautious, subdued,
mysterious, jerky, clipped, bouncy
I need to assess whether the student is able to
I also need to determine whether the student's reading readiness includes comfort in having eyes travel from left to right on a steady horizontal line. (That is not the way our eyes travel when we watch television!)
Before introducing the notation of rhythm, I want to be sure that the student has experienced rhythm as a vital part of life and music-making. When introducing the visual representation of regular pulse patterns, I keep in mind the need to develop an awareness of several different aspects of rhythm:
1. Regularity of a steady pulse. For example,
o o o o o o o o
2 Variety of energy levels and expressive qualities experienced as a steady pulse (i.e. different speeds, and dynamics ).For example,
o o o o o o o
and . . . . . . . . . . .
and o o o o o o o o o o o
3. Grouping regular pulses into small sets. For example:
ø o ø o ø o ø o ø
and ø o o ø o o ø o o ø o o
4. Sub-division of regular pulses. For example:
ø . o . ø . o . ø . o .
and ø . . o . . o . . ø . . o . . o . .
and ø . . . o . . . ø . . . o . . .
5. Rhythmic patterns that are superimposed on regular pulses which are grouped and sub-divided. For example,
The Japanese composer Tohru Takemitsu suggests that "the role of notation is to change the noun 'music' into the verb 'music'." When "teaching rhythm to a beginner" - that is, when "teaching the notation of rhythm to a beginner" - I want to remember that my reason for helping students understand rhythmic notation is to enable them to "change the verb 'music' into the noun 'music' so that later, they will be able to decipher a traditional system of notating sounds and, once again, "change the noun 'music' back into the verb 'music'."
The daughter of an independent piano teacher in Illinois, BARBARA ENGLISH MARIS has taught students of many ages (pre-school to post-retirement) from six continents. At the Catholic University of America (Washington, DC) she teaches piano performance and coordinates the graduate degree programs (MM and DMA) in piano pedagogy
