Rhythm
Bruce Berr, Editor
from Maggie Charnon's article
Prerequisites for teaching tempo modification
When learning this little gem, students often fall into three rhythm traps:
1. Executing the dotted-8th-16th note pattern in a jazz "swing" style
2. Playing straight 8th note patterns inaccurately after having played many dotted patterns
3. Not sustaining the rhythmic drive
How to avoid these three "traps"
These traps are easily avoided with a few preparatory exercises and troubleshooting techniques I will discuss below. The purpose of the exercises is to have the student execute the new concept in a context he or she is already familiar with. This can be a scale that can be done without having to think about it, or chords that are second nature to find. The less the student has to think about, the quicker the newer concept can take hold.
When working with these exercises and techniques, it is essential that students use some type of verbalization such as counting ("1-e-and-a" or "1-ta-te-ta" ) or rhythmic execution of words that follow the natural accent of the patterns, such as "pret-ty pol-ly", or even nonsense syllables. (My students like to use "doo-bee-doo-bee") It is also necessary that they are instructed on effective use of a metronome, and that they feel comfortable using one while playing, counting out loud, or along with tapping. . .
Maggie Charnon is a retired professor of music from the University of Wisconsin at Green Bay. She has a large private studio, freelances as lecturer at St. Norbert College in DePere, WI., and gives seminars and lectures to professional teachers' groups. She studied piano with Ellsworth Snyder at Milton College and piano pedagogy with Frances Larimer at Northwestern University where she did her graduate work. She is currently President of the Northeastern Wisconsin Piano Teachers' Forum, and chairs their competitions and festivals for Baroque and Classical literature.
from Audrey Evans' article
If . . . rhythm is accurate, musicality can rise to the surface.
As I contemplated this article on teaching the tricky rhythms found in the one-movement Kabalevsky "Sonatina in A minor," the importance of accuracy stood out. I have heard this tuneful and charming piece performed many times with rhythms that were not exactly precise, not only by students of others but my own as well.
Whenever I am faced with a problematic rhythm I am reminded of a quotation from Plato found in The Republic, Bk.1: "Musical training is a more potent instrument than any other because rhythm and harmony find their way into the inward places of the soul." Rhythm is the soul and spirit of music; it is the heartbeat and pulse that binds it together. Surely it is as important as all other elements combined. Without a correct rhythm, music falls apart, and the composer's intention is lost. If the rhythm is accurate, musicality can rise to the surface.
Sorting out the rhythms
Teaching the various rhythms in the Kabalevsky "Sonatina"
is not an easy task. Consider mm. 1-8. Students are faced with
double-dotted quarter notes, dotted eighth notes, 16ths, etc.
How do we help them sort all of this out? . . .
Audrey F. Evans has spent much of her fifty-year teaching career in Chicago. She was on the faculty of the American Conservatory of Music for many years, teaching studio piano and piano pedagogy at the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as supervising the classes in accompanying, ensembles, and keyboard skills. She also taught at the Chicago Musical College of Roosevelt University, and served as a consultant for the blind at the University of Illinois Disability Services. Ms. Evans has performed extensively as a soloist, duo-pianist, chamber player, and lecturer, and has frequently presented lecture recitals on the music and theories of Oliver Messiaen. She recently moved to California, where she is teaching in her home studio and at the Grace Christian Academy in Pasadena.
from Bruce Berr's article
What problems are inherent when playing persistent dotted rhythms?
Pieces that have persistent dotted rhythms (ones that appear in many measures consecutively) present a special challenge to intermediate and even advanced level pianists. Learning how to subdivide accurately at moderate and fast tempos is enough of a challenge in itself; reliably producing accurate results over many repeated occurrences when there is no down time for mental or physical rest is even more challenging and is actually a separate problem in itself. The evidence of this is that students who can produce dotted rhythms accurately when they appear occasionally in a piece cannot necessarily do so when confronted with persistent dotted rhythms. Usually the first few dotted patterns are accurately played, and then the timing insidiously modulates into "swing" rhythm where it stubbornly remains. This is understandable: swing rhythm is easier to play because the fast notes are not as fast as 16ths. Also, students living in our modern pop culture hear swing rhythms often but rarely hear dotted rhythms unless they listen to other classical music in their household or at formal concerts.
Even when students can play persistent dotted rhythms accurately, there can be a price paid musically. Students are usually so busy subdividing that they stop paying attention to shaping the line and giving it direction. Even tone quality can suffer when dotted rhythms permeate a composition. Fast rhythms induce pianists to play fast and deeply into the keys, which can produce marcato; if the piece instead calls for cantabile, such motions can be counterproductive and unmusical. It can seem to the student that solving one problem creates another. . .
Bruce Berr is associate editor and webmaster
of KEYBOARD COMPANION.
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