Rhythm Reading

[crucifixion]

My weakest point in music is rhythm reading. How do I improve this? Whenever I approach a piece of music I try to play it by feel. I don't count as I'm playing. I mean, I do sometimes attempt to count while playing my instruments but when I do it only messes me up. Are there any free software programs out there that could help me with my rhythm reading?

[kyliec]

Hi, I have recently bought a book called How to Sightread any Rhythm Instantly, it is on Amazon.com. It is a reasonable runthrough of how to read rhythms, counting etc.

I have found it best to work out each rhythm mathematically by subdividing into smallest units, then speeding it up. After a while it will get more automatic.

Other things that may help...
clapping/tapping the rhythm / counting aloud
listening to a recording and following the score
hope this helps, Kylie

[faulty_damper]

Don't ever count.  Period.

Rhythm is about subdividing one unit of musical events we call the 'beat'.  This beat is the stand-alone field where musical activites take place.  It can be very long in duration or very short.  It exists in all music (and even in speech), even when the duration is so long it seems like there is none.  It's also easier to learn and master than note reading (pitch).  But because they are usually taught concurrently as one entity - pitch and rhythm - most students never master them.

The book: Sight-read Any Rhythm Instantly, by Mark Phillips, is probably the best book about rhythm I've encountered and also the cheapest at $9.95 USD.

Many of the things he has to say are correct, but a few things are inconsistent and unnecessary including noteheads.  Noteheads are only used for identifying pitch, never rhythm*.  Another is the use of English sentences to "feel" the rhythm.  For example to feel 6/8 time, he uses "Fol - l ow  the  Yel - low  brick".  This is an improvement over the counting method but is still not as effective as using standardized syllables like "ta, ta'te, ta'te'ti, ta'pa'te'pe, et al".  He also contradicts himself by saying you should count in your head when he makes it clear that you are not counting.  Then he contradicts this and asks you to count when encountering asymetrical beats.

I have many other issues: He then asks you to think "hit, don't hit, hit" when clearly this is similar to counting.  Only instead of numbers you are thinking about doing something when this thinking about doing it is not necessary.  So on top of asking you to count in your head, he wants you to think about hitting or not hitting as you hit or don't hit...

At this point, he has created extra steps that just counting would not have caused.  Reason why he does this:  He doesn't understand the musical beat.   There is no actual thing such as the bar line or meter - these are intellectual afterthoughts of actual musical phenomenon yet he attempts to teach rhythm is such a manner.  This is, to quote Phillips, "the wrong way to think" p.8 in his book.

I have found a far superior method to teaching rhythm and 7-year-olds will be able to read and perform most rhythms in a week fluently.  But to be most effective, you actually need a teacher to teach this.


*In the case of half-notes, that is just one beat 'tied' to another beat but is written with an open notehead.  It must be understood that a half note is a quarter tied to another quarter, and dotted halves are 3 tied quarter notes and so on.

[pianistimo]

it seems that age also has something to do with this.  for instance, if you learn to ride a bike at a very young age -by the time you're 7-10 - you're probably turning tight corners and whizzing around.  if you learn as an adult...you're taking a few steps back before you can go forward.

one of the steps back is to know each type of note.  i like bastien because they pretty much follow the idea that when you count a note - you say the type of note that it is.

quarter, quarter, quarter...
two-eighths, two-eighths...
four-six-teenth-notes...
half-note...
half-note-dot...
whole note hold it...

when a child learns all the names of the notes and the rhythm at the same time, it eliminates having to go back and establish one or the other.  also, many children don't know when to end a phrase and hold the last note of the piece indefinately.  so - you can add a little 'up' (meaning finger off the note).  whole-note-hold-it-up.

i went further and said 'finger up, hand off, down-in-your-lap.'  otherwise- if your hands are anywhere near the keyboard - people think you're still playing and never clap.

also, there is the matter of fermatas.  nobody seems to know how long to hold them.  speed always enters into this.  at a fast speed - you might double the fermata.  at a slower speed - merely adding half the previous value of the measure.

faculty_damper makes some good points, too, for older students.  for one thing - it's all very mathematical.  if you don't know much about how measures are divided - how can you know the beat?  you have to start with the time-signature, the way the beats are divided and, then...cut up the beats from there.  i suppose making little exercises for adult students would be helpful.  writing a couple of measures several different ways.