Teaching Rhythm

[jenilyn]

I have 3 younger students who are really struggling with rhythm, especially dotted rhythms.  Do any of you have any creative teaching methods for these difficult rhythms?  I have tried everything and NOTHING is working! 

[luvslive]

What is it about the dotted rhythm they are not getting? 
If we are taking about just a single melody with a dotted note:  Make sure they are subdividing the beat, 1 & 2 & etc. and can feel beat 2 on the dot.  Perhaps tap a beat while they play the dotted rhythm, or have them tap a beat while you do so.

Is it playing with both hands, one having a dotted quarter note and the other just quarter notes?  If so have them tap the rhythm using the correct hands saying together, left, right, together in rhythm or some other words that work.

[jenilyn]

I have tried everything I know and none of it is working.  I have had them tap the beat with their feet and try to clap the rhythm, I turn on the metronome and have them feel the beat and I talk to them about the upbeats and that the eighth note after the dotted quarter note comes on the off beat after beat 2, etc.  I need CREATIVE ways to teach it.  I don't know how these kids don't get it.  It is a mystery to me.

[danny elfboy]

One problem with dotted notes is that beginners think of the following notes (the rests of the first beat) as tied to the first beat and this creates a break in the rhythmic flow. They need instead to think of the following notes after a dotted note (the rests of the first beat) as tied to the NEXT beat.

For example:



A common mistake is to consider the & in relation to the first beat.
This causes a pause between the beats which destroy the rhythmic flow

oneeeeee and .... twoooooo and ..... threeeee

taaaaaaaa TA ..... taaaaaaaa TA ...... taaaaaaa

The correct way is to think of the note after a dotted note as completely tied to the next beat

oneeeeee .... and-twoooooo .... and-threeeeee

taaaaaaa .... ta-ta aaaaaaa .....  ta-ta aaaaaaaa

So they tend to count or sing like this: https://midishrine.com/midi/20087.mid
Instea of the correct one: https://midishrine.com/midi/20088.mid

[danny elfboy]

Another thing to consider:



You can consider the first beat as a "group" of identical notes (hence four 16th notes)
In this way it's easy to see how the note that comes after the dotted note is the "last piece of the group" (i.e. the fourth) which means that the other 3 pieces are all the same note.

This also helps to introduce the concept that a dotted note has the purpose of allowing a division by three. So rhythm is introduced has something which is always divided binary.
The dot is what allows music to be divided by three.

That is: if a note is the binary composition of two notes half its value, adding a dot allows us to add another "half note".

So half + half (the whole note) + half (the dot) = 3 halves (hence 1 - 2 and 3)



This concept is seen in the example above as the dot allows the "beat group" to be divided by three leaving one note (the fourth piece of the group) alone and free to connect to the next beat.

[gerry]

Puts me in mind of my earliest piano lessons (age 5 - 12). Once every other week my teacher would hold  "rhythm band" at her home where we would all be given different percussion items and individual instructions and would play a sort of ensemble piece - very effective.

[danny elfboy]

The playing the rhythm on percussions is a great idea.
Another thought I had is to use "Jingle Bells" has a perfect example of how to count/execute dotted notes or rhythms with dotted notes.



Make them notice how the A and B sounds completely tied as if the A didn't really belong to the second beat but to the third (almost as if A was a grace note)

[johnk]

The kids should be introduced to the rhythms aurally before any attempt to explain the written notation. Do echo chanting with rhymes and songs and clapping etc, then teach the dotted rhythm by rote in some pieces and finally attempt to teach the counting.

"Lon - don bridge is fal - ling down." Echo, clap ...

Notice I can make a click of my tongue after "Lon" - "Lon-(click)-don bridge ..."
Then show them the note and the dot is the click you wait for.

[jenilyn]

Thanks everyone for your suggestions!  Really helpful!

[puddy]

 I usually start off with the beginner books teaching dotted cotchet, quaver, crotchet. What is important is to distinguish between crotchet and quaver. Take a crotchet  as a walking note and a quaver as a running note, I say 1,2 quick slow for the above. It works. Try it.

[musicrebel4u]

I am introducing the rhythm patterns for students from 2+ year old with the help of a computerized program called 'Note Duration'
You may download a free demo version of this program here:

-https://www.doremifasoft.com/noducoga.html

Students have to play music pieces using only space button of the computer keyboard. At first they build coordination with help of colors. Later, when they are more confident, program is taking colors away and they have to rely on duration symbols on the buskets.

Second piece on demo version have dutted notes. It could help you to teach them how to play the piece and count.

I also have some different way to explain rhythm to students and planning to post it with pictures in my next post.

[musicrebel4u]

First of all I tell my students that music is like a train. The bars of the music are like cars of the train. Each car has the same amount of sits. It is written on the top after Treble or Bass cleaves. 

Each sit is fit for an adult (for beginners it is a quarter note)
Big people are taking two sits at once (half notes)
Quarter with dot - is an adult with a dog. Dog usually sits on the next sit with a child
Half note with a dot - is a big person with a big dog, who takes one entire sit
Whole note - is a tired person who sleeps in 4 sits

I am going to post the pictures. These pictures belong to me. Feel free to copy them and use in your lessons (if you like it, of cause)

[musicrebel4u]

Sorry, I was in hurry and posted pictures wrong way.
I will redo it after my lessons in the evening

[musicrebel4u]

Another try

[keypeg]

Musicrebel4u, are you familiar with the Waldorf schools and Rudolf Steiner?  This reminds me of how multiplication was taught.  "3X" was an old man with a cane.  He walked step-step-cane, step-step-cane.  the children walked a round being the old man.  Then they used beautiful colors and wrote 1 2 *3* 4 5 *6* 7 8 [*9* - It was still the old man and his cane.  Then the used more beautiful colours and wrote 3, 6, 9, 12.  Then they could multiply 4X3 = 12.  It was inside them in pictures, right-brain, emotion-body-mind.  Your train reminds me of this in some respects.

[faulty_damper]

The kids should be introduced to the rhythms aurally before any attempt to explain the written notation. Do echo chanting with rhymes and songs and clapping etc, then teach the dotted rhythm by rote in some pieces and finally attempt to teach the counting.

"Lon - don bridge is fal - ling down." Echo, clap ...

Notice I can make a click of my tongue after "Lon" - "Lon-(click)-don bridge ..."
Then show them the note and the dot is the click you wait for.

This is a VERY IMPORTANT PROCESS that most instrumental teachers fail to do.  They teach the visual, written notation instead of the aural one.  Failure to demonstrate this rhythm aurally essentially fails everything else because music is about sound, not what black dots on paper look like.

If they can echo back exactly what the instructor does, then they DO NOT have a problem with dotted rhythms.  I've never had a student have problems with dotted rhythms - they can all echo back correctly.  With just a bit more echooing and practice, they can then make visual associations with how the sound looks like on paper.  They can also write this notation, too.  All of this is done in less than 10 minutes and it all started with how it sounded.

Considering some of the responses to this thread, it appears that most instruction of sound is through paper. 

[musicrebel4u]

Half note
Addition to quarter note + dot and eight
Half note with a dot
Whole note

[musicrebel4u]

Musicrebel4u, are you familiar with the Waldorf schools and Rudolf Steiner?  This reminds me of how multiplication was taught.  "3X" was an old man with a cane.  He walked step-step-cane, step-step-cane.  the children walked a round being the old man.  Then they used beautiful colors and wrote 1 2 *3* 4 5 *6* 7 8 [*9* - It was still the old man and his cane.  Then the used more beautiful colours and wrote 3, 6, 9, 12.  Then they could multiply 4X3 = 12.  It was inside them in pictures, right-brain, emotion-body-mind.  Your train reminds me of this in some respects.

I am familiar with physiology of students: they got rhythm before their birth. All what we have to do - is to pull out the knowlege they already have in the most natural way. It works in my class with anybody and it would work for you.

[keypeg]

Yes, I imagine that they do.  All of nature is rhythmic, in fact, now that you have made me think about it.  Animals and insects move rhythymically, as though to an internal beat.

In what I was asking before, was wondering if you were familiar with Steiner and the Waldorf school.  If you're not, the question is unimportant.

When you write about natural rhythm, then here as well as elsewhere, you are drawing out of the student what is already within him or her?  That is opposed to filling an empty vessel with foreign material that must be learned?  Or rather than replacing a vessel with faulty content that must be corrected and changed (another teaching philosophy, whether consciously or unconsciously considered).

[mknueven]

Sometimes when they are having a hard time with it
I just tap them out and have them tap with me on closed lid of piano.
Tap straight quarter notes with Right hand
and the other rhtym in left hand
If I have triplet I'll tap three times in left, one in the other depending on the rhtymn
I'm working out

Sometimes I play the song and show wrong with all the right notes but incorrect rhtym
(With a song they know very well at least in their head)
I find this helps a lot - when I show what I did wrong and why it sounded wrong
even though the notes were right.

[musicrebel4u]

Musicrebel4u, are you familiar with the Waldorf schools and Rudolf Steiner?  This reminds me of how multiplication was taught.  "3X" was an old man with a cane.  He walked step-step-cane, step-step-cane.  the children walked a round being the old man.  Then they used beautiful colors and wrote 1 2 *3* 4 5 *6* 7 8 [*9* - It was still the old man and his cane.  Then the used more beautiful colours and wrote 3, 6, 9, 12.  Then they could multiply 4X3 = 12.  It was inside them in pictures, right-brain, emotion-body-mind.  Your train reminds me of this in some respects.

Currently very busy
Will answer ASAP

[anna_crusis]

I have tried everything I know and none of it is working.  I have had them tap the beat with their feet and try to clap the rhythm, I turn on the metronome and have them feel the beat and I talk to them about the upbeats and that the eighth note after the dotted quarter note comes on the off beat after beat 2, etc.  I need CREATIVE ways to teach it.  I don't know how these kids don't get it.  It is a mystery to me.

Some kids can't seem to copy a rhythm you've just clapped. I think it's a lack of inner rhythm or co-ordination... whatever the case if you actually HOLD their hands and clap them together in the correct rhythm they'll start to get it. It's like they need some sort of physiological kick start from another person.

Also, subtle body movements while clapping can help, so they can physically feel the pulse of the music.