The Rhythm of Life!
“I got rhythm, I got music, I got my man
Who could ask for anything more?” – George & Ira Gershwin
Rhythm is perhaps one of the most difficult skills for any musician to master. I’ve heard plenty of teachers speak of their student’s rhythmic woes, and how frustrating and restricting it can be to their overall progress. It is something that requires enormous levels of concentration and focus to perform accurately, with the difference between playing something early, late, or perfectly in time often teetering on a knife-edge. 🔪
Hopefully you have had the experience of playing in an ensemble that has synchronised perfectly together. It’s as if all the pieces of the puzzle have fallen into place, and the unity of everyone’s hearts, minds, and breath combine together to create magic on stage. Whilst this may seem like something that happens by fluke, these moments can occur more often when everyone is rhythmically in-line and “feelin’ the groove.” But this only happens with effective rhythmic practice in your routine each week.
Rhythmic accuracy and stability is something that I have always incorporated into my regular practice routine. It is an aspect of my playing that needs constant attention, so that I stay metronomically razor sharp and aware of any subdivision laziness creeping in. Fortunately, developing rhythmic precision is a skill where you can gain clear, objective, and immediate feedback very easily, so corrections can be made in a timely manner (pun intended!)
So how can you improve your rhythmic accuracy? 🤔
Part of developing consistent rhythm and tempo revolves around having a strong inner pulse, and accurate subdivision. Because we are working with measurements of time that are abstract (how can you describe to someone the length of 1 second in words, if they didn’t know how long a second goes for in the first place!?), it’s best to start with something that provides the student with a steady pulse to follow i.e. a metronome.
Learning how much time there is in between beats can take a bit of getting used to. Subdividing with the smallest possible increments at first (eg. semiquavers) will ensure that the tempo stays consistent. Also using physical actions such as clapping, tapping, singing/speaking, or walking with the beat provides a literal “feel” for the pulse, rather than only having it in your head. Incorporating as many senses as possible when learning a new skill can be hugely beneficial, as it makes the learning experience as rich and vivid as possible. This enables the student to retain significantly more information, leading to greater improvements. 🤓
Once the basic foundation of pulse has been firmly established, you can begin building up to more complicated and challenging rhythmic patterns. This is where I start to associate rhythm with words, in order to connect the new rhythmic concept with something that has been previously learned and is performed automatically. This combination of old learning being tied to new material is extremely effective in helping students understand complex ideas in a simple and straightforward manner. It can be a lot of fun too, especially when students come up with their own word combinations!
My word combinations have a food theme:
crotchet/quarter note = chips 🍟
2 quavers/8th notes = piz-za 🍕
triplets = blue-ber-ry or pine-ap-ple 🍍
semiquavers/16th notes = wat-er-me-lon or chi-cken-nug-get 🍉
quaver + 2 semiquavers/8th note + 2 16th notes = ham-bur-ger 🍔
2 semiquavers + quaver/2 16th notes + 8th note = sau-sage-roll etc. 🥖
Now that the student has a better grasp of the rhythm, you can add further complexity into the mix by getting them to play it on their instrument. Starting slowly and making sure to subdivide is critical here.
The dreaded dotted rhythm! 😖
Dotted rhythms can be a real challenge for so many musicians. So if you, or your students struggle with this, then try out the following method:
Start by slowly counting 4 quaver beats at M.M.=80.
Sing, clap, or play a dotted rhythm on beats 1 and 4, or for the reverse dotted rhythm on 1 and 2.
Gradually increase the tempo once the rhythm stabilises.
When you begin to “feel the groove” of the dotted rhythm, halve the metronome count (i.e. quaver=120 becomes crotchet =60.) This may be a little destabilising at first, but with accurate subdivision you should be able to get back in time pretty quickly.
From this point, refer to the dotted rhythm as “long-short”, and reverse as “short-long.” This helps you to move past the learning structure of subdivision, and develops a stronger rhythmic “feel” instead.
Practice this exercise for no more than 5-10 minutes at a time, but always go back and repeat these steps a number of times over the course of a practice session/day/week.
Incorporating more rhythmic and subdivision practice into your routine each day can be as simple as putting your metronome on for your warm-up exercises. Make up your own rhythmic variations for exercises that you can already comfortably play, and see what challenging rhythmic games you can invent to keep your practice sessions interesting, engaging, and fun!
Other suggested rhythmic exercises
With a metronome:
Start with counting the beat numbers out loud, and moving/swaying/stepping to the beat
Subdivide out loud (1-&-2-&, or 1-ee-&-a 2-ee-&-a etc.)
Walk with the beat + say subdivisions out loud. Then turn off the metronome and keep walking in tempo
March in tempo and clap the rhythm
Above exercises but with metronome clicking only on beats 1&3 or 2&4, then only on beat 1 of each bar, then on beat 1 of every 2nd bar/3rd bar etc.
General rhythmic strategies
Relate rhythm to something you already know i.e. use words that have a similar rhythmic pattern
Incorporate difficult rhythms into your warm up routine to normalise challenging rhythmic patterns eg. scales etc.
Start slow and emphasise subdividing before increasing the tempo
Play rhythm on 1 note
Play rhythm at pitch with the subdivisions i.e. a crotchet C can be played as 2 quaver/8th note C’s
Sing your part and conduct along
Record yourself for immediate feedback, and tap/clap the tempo to identify areas of instability