2's against 3's

[jenilyn]

I want my students to learn how to play triplets agains thirds so they can be introduced to a larger repertoire.  I guess I am wondering what would be a good piece to introduce this concept?

[bob3.1415926]

Assuming they're of a fair standard (otherwise 2s vs 3s is probably too much anyway) then Debussy Arabesque no.1 is a great example.

[kyliec]

I think Mirriam Hyde does a students' piece Four Funny Frogs - this phrase emphasises the 2 against 3 rhythm. Pretty basic stff though.
Kylie

[m19834]

Philip Glass :  "Opening" (Glassworks) -- A harmonically compelling piece with two against three the whole way through.

Here is a link to a youtube of somebody playing the work, and you can actually see the score in the frame of the video picture :

Of course, finding a piece with 2 against 3 in it does not alleviate the needed process of actually learning how to do it -- which is the real issue ! 

[ahinton]

My aural training master used to warn the class that "if you admit the thought of four against seven, or nine against eleven, they'll only ever end up as four and seven, or nine and eleven, against you! - it's four in the time of seven and nine in the time of eleven...". He wasn't wrong. OK, when one gets to be up against the kinds of multiple nested tuplets - especially those which may begin with rests - the disciplines of figuring out how best to present these higher levels of rhythmic complexity can become quite a problem to overcome; whilst this may seem to be the kind of thing that one would only expect to find in certain more recent music, let's not forget the 6 in the time of 7 for which Chopin aks in his Nocturne, Op. 27/2...

Best,

Alistair

[quantum]

The Chopin Nouvelle Etude in Ab. 

[faulty_damper]

I want my students to learn how to play triplets agains thirds so they can be introduced to a larger repertoire.  I guess I am wondering what would be a good piece to introduce this concept?

Don't use an actual piano piece to introduce something as simply complex as 2s and 3s.  Just teach it rhytmically.

The sound of 2s and 3s together is simply "ta tate ta", or written | V |.  This should already be very familiar with the student.

Take each hand and and pat the lap to the rhythm.  Voila, they are doing it themselves!  And it took less than 5 seconds.  Lets see if any other piano teacher can get their students to perform 2s with 3s as easily as this.   This concept can takes weeks or even months the way certain teachers teach.  And your student just did it in less than 5 seconds. 

[quantum]

Expanding on what faulty_damper said.


Have them say a phrase like "Nice cup of tea" Using the natural speech rhythm to emphasize the resultant pattern.  Easy to remember.

Have them tap on their knees 3 in one hand 2 in the other then reverse. 

Have them tap on their knees like above while also isolating one of the rhythms and do all variations of this.  Keep a steady rhythm, and you should be able to cycle through the patterns without pause.

R 3, L 2 - Count in 3
R 3, L 2 - Count in 2
R 2, L3 - Count in 2
R 2, L 3 - Count in 3

[faulty_damper]

About mnemonics: in my experience, using mnemonic devices don't work as effectively as using specific sylables in teaching/learning rhythms.  It usually takes longer because each device is specific only for the task at hand whereas using specific sylables, such as ta's and tate's, can very easily be carried over to another aspect of rhythm.

Another reason they are not effective is because it's more difficult to turn "Nice cup of tea" into something that is musically interesting.  Compared to using | V |, I can expand this into | V | V V V |.  Now comparing this to  "Nice cup of tea cup of cup of cup of tea."

Another problem with using such sentences to teach rhythm is the inherent meaning of these words.  "Nice cup of tea" means a drink with tea leaves soaked inside hot water to extract the water-soluble agents.  Ta's and tate's have no such meaning; they are nonsense sylables so they can be readily associated with the meaning the teacher instructs.

[slobone]

The mnemonic I learned is "not difficult".

[gyzzzmo]

Just let them play them by comparing the 3 notes with the 2 notes on the sheetmusic. Then let them play the 3 notes louder (so they start thinking with those), and then the 2 notes, so they learn that they are actually playing 2 different speeds at the same time, instead of 'that note comes quickly after that note, after that note......'

The first time i encoutered those (and learned playing them) was in a Bohemian Rhapsody (Queen) transcription.

gyzzzmo