Music is at once simple and complex. We hear it, and we are moved by the feelings the music evokes. Yet, it is also a complex matter. There are eight ingredients of music: medium (the sound), meter-tempo-rhythm (the time), melody (the tune), harmony (the chords), texture (the thickness or number of voices), form (the organization), dynamics (t...

In the Winter 1994 issue of KEYBOARD COMPANION, several writers responded to a question on teaching downbeats. As if in unison, those teachers gave suggestions for feeling large groups of beats, the sense of moving from one down beat to the next instead of from one pulse to the next pulse.  We swing, conduct with sweeping circles of the arms (...

To teach or not to teach downbeats is really not the question. We all realize that a sense of meter is dependent on the student's feeling of emphasis on the first beat of each measure. Just how one teaches downbeats varies from teacher to teacher, from method to method. Many helpful suggestions for a variety of rhythm activities aimed at feeling th...