keeping the inner tempo/beat: plz help

[lorcar]

is there anything worse for someone who loves music than not having the tempo right?
my teacher keeps telling me to listen the internal beat, but simply I DONT. I feel so frustrated. I do study with the metronome, but problem is when playing a piece without metronome, and with 16th. I dont play them coherently with the tempo given by my 8ths. I make the 16ths too short, too nervous, not equally paced. The piece I have been struggling the most so far is still this, Schumann Reiterstuck, tempo is 6/8, but I am having hard time to keep the inner tempo as it is a sequence of 1/8, pauses, and 1/16ths...
any tip from you master? Bernhard & Co?

[j_menz]

Don't look for your internal "beat", look for your internal rhythm.

Get up from the piano, and move to the music. Walk to it, dance to it, tap your feet/hands to it. Feel the rhythm, move to the rhythm. Then sit back at the piano and play the rhythm.

If you must use the metronome, set it so it beats twice, and no more, to the bar.

[lorcar]

seriously, I am thinking I should quit. There is no point of keeping doing it without being able to study as much as needed in order to improve or at an age where you life besides music is also set and your brain/body can only do some thing.
as far as the beat: i try to start playing using my foot, but then after few bars I simply cant keep the foot at a steady and constant pace with LH and RH doing other stuff. I simply cant keep the rhythm if the music "distracts me"

[j_menz]

You are trying to separate the rhythm from the music. Don't.

Don't play the rhythm with your foot, play it with your hands, using the notes of the piece to do it. The music shouldn't distract you from the beat, it should be the means by which you tap it out.

[indianajo]

Everybody has regular rhythm, but they use it to walk on two legs without falling down.  I knew of many fellow students of my teacher who sped up and slowed down randomly, or depending on how hard the piece was (slower for harder).  Both practices were not pleasing to listeners.  
The trick is to move the skill of rhythm from walking, to playing piano.  
I suggest counting one two three four, as you walk.  You obviously walk in rhythm, you haven't broken any bones lately from falling. People with some nerve disease like MS are excused from this exercise.  Count  continually aloud or in your head, every time you walk, until counting is as natural as walking is.  Walk fast on the way to the next class, walk slowly looking at a sunset, but walk and count.
Then after some weeks of this, count in the same way you have trained yourself, while playing the piano.  If you can't read the music and count at the same time, slow down and play one hand at a time.  The accuracy of the rhythm is what matters while you are learning this skill. You are your own metronome, but you have to connect the skill of your feet,  to your hands .
Don't change rhythm speed for emotional reasons until you have played in strict rhythm for a couple of years.  Chopin is no composer to use as a teaching source for young students with rhythm problems.  
Piano teachers can criticize bad rnythm, but I don't know of any who has used or endorsed this method.  But man has been walking in rhythm since he stopped swinging from trees as an ape.  Use your reflexes, don't ignore them.  
good luck.  

[hfmadopter]

Don't change rhythm speed for emotional reasons until you have played in strict rhythm for a couple of years.  Chopin is no composer to use as a teaching source for young students with rhythm problems.  

good luck.  

This part in I quoted above is throwing my Grand daughter in a duet we are doing Christmas Eve. She is only a second year student, doing pretty well. In the duet she has the melody, as the bass is full of notes she would not be able to handle yet but here and there there there are contrasting passages that I have to bring out. I've explained that she has to count through my parts as well as hers to come in on time ( she is on rests  in these parts). Just as I have to count hers so we hit the ending chords together. I tend to use more freedom in those passages than she is used to hearing, I guess I'll have to tame that for this performance. She has a lesson tonight and we will work on this. Otherwise it's a go, she has done very well on this piece though and for me too, it's been decades since I've played a duet. She is just 13, so full of life and spark in her young personality, I hope she never loses that.

[gregh]

seriously, I am thinking I should quit. There is no point of keeping doing it without being able to study as much as needed in order to improve or at an age where you life besides music is also set and your brain/body can only do some thing.
as far as the beat: i try to start playing using my foot, but then after few bars I simply cant keep the foot at a steady and constant pace with LH and RH doing other stuff. I simply cant keep the rhythm if the music "distracts me"

Can you sing it in time?

I find music is easier to play when I "get" it. For instance, when I can hum the melody as I'm walking and my footsteps measure out the beats like I'm marching to it. When I can sing it without counting one-and-two-and..., but just singing it the way it is supposed to sound, something that can come spontaneously in the shower or while driving.

Listen to it, sing it, then try to play it.

[lorcar]

just singing it the way it is supposed to sound, something that can come spontaneously in the shower or while driving.

Listen to it, sing it, then try to play it.

pretty interesting because on this point...
I am having the same problem on Heller op 47 etude 12, the tempo here is 3/4, and I put the metronome every 1/4th
here pag 20
https://tinyurl.com/perq93c
I usually tend to go too fast BUT for some reason i Ignore, in bar 21, where you have 6 1/8th on the LH and 3 quarter on the RH (which should help keep the proper pace, I reckon) I tend to goo too SLOWLY, which has never happened before.
And (going back to your point about how it is SUPPOSED to sound) when I listened that bar on youtube, my idea is that they play it TOO FAST. I mean: with the metronome I can force myself to go on tempo, but if it were up to me, I'd slow it down on that bar. And listening it (like here

the piece starts at 4:10, and the bar is at 4:26. Or here at 0:20

) I think "wow, why are they going so fast here?"
How am I supposed to count on that bar? If I keep doing 1-2-3 (the 1/4th) on the RH, 1-2-3-4-5-6 on the LH,  then the beat is on 1 3 and 5 on the LH, and perhaps this is what tricks me.  Should I supposedly count the 1/8th like  1-2, 1-2, 1-2 instead?

thanks a lot in advance to everyone

[j_menz]

How am I supposed to count on that bar?

ONE and two and three and.

You should count the beats, not the notes.

[lorcar]

ONE and two and three and.

You should count the beats, not the notes.

sure, but I have been told that often you "double up", so it becomes somehow easier:1 2 3 4 5 6 7, in order to keep better spacing between subdivisions

[hfmadopter]

sure, but I have been told that often you "double up", so it becomes somehow easier:1 2 3 4 5 6 7, in order to keep better spacing between subdivisions

That's a method ( and for some reason some school bands work this way, silly IMO) but not really the right method. You want 1-2-3 to be on time, the and fits between the beats, so 1+2+3+. Counting 123456 may still tend to lead to unevenness.  In this method 1-3-5 are on the beat, which is not really synonymous to 3/4 time. If you are going to learn to count you might as well do it fully correctly.

[lorcar]

That's a method ( and for some reason some school bands work this way, silly IMO) but not really the right method. You want 1-2-3 to be on time, the and fits between the beats, so 1+2+3+. Counting 123456 may still tend to lead to unevenness.  In this method 1-3-5 are on the beat, which is not really synonymous to 3/4 time. If you are going to learn to count you might as well do it fully correctly.

thanks
sorry but I dont get what is your suggestion: adding "+" in the count between 1-2-3?
thanks

[ted]

I suggest playing technically easier boogie, ragtime, stride or swing pieces. The nature of these types of music is such that it forces your inner rhythm to operate. Few people cannot play a simple boogie bass, it is so strongly intuitive and physically easy. The rhythms of classical music are probably too bland and uniform to be of any use to you.

[indianajo]

If one is having trouble with eighth notes, one counts " one and two and three and four and" every measure.  that is what previous poster meant with the plus signs, I am sure.
If one is having trouble with sixteenth notes, one countes "One-e-and-a-two-e-and-a-three-e-and-a-four-e-and-a.
Saying all that sort of automatically pushes you to play the piece slow enough that you can play it without pausing to think.  Slowing down at the hard parts and speeding up on the easy parts seriously annoys trained musicians like your teacher.  What one does, is play the piece all at the same speed, the one you are counting, the speed where you make no mistakes, until you have the piece learned in your cerebellum-medulla, not with the frontal lobes.  There is supposed to be no words or intentions in the basic playing of the piano.   Then, when playing a piece is all automatic, like baseball players catch a ball and throw a double play to first without thinking, then crank up the speed.  When the whole piece is up to an even tempo without pauses, then you may add emotion for effect. I do not recommend the emotion you communicate is fear of the hard parts (slow) , and relief at the easy parts (fast). 

[awesom_o]

If one is having trouble with eighth notes, one counts " one and two and three and four and" every measure.  that is what previous poster meant with the plus signs, I am sure.
If one is having trouble with sixteenth notes, one countes "One-e-and-a-two-e-and-a-three-e-and-a-four-e-and-a.
Saying all that sort of automatically pushes you to play the piece slow enough that you can play it without pausing to think.  Slowing down at the hard parts and speeding up on the easy parts seriously annoys trained musicians like your teacher.  What one does, is play the piece all at the same speed, the one you are counting, the speed where you make no mistakes, until you have the piece learned in your cerebellum-medulla, not with the frontal lobes.  There is supposed to be no words or intentions in the basic playing of the piano.   Then, when playing a piece is all automatic, like baseball players catch a ball and throw a double play to first without thinking, then crank up the speed.  When the whole piece is up to an even tempo without pauses, then you may add emotion for effect. I do not recommend the emotion you communicate is fear of the hard parts (slow) , and relief at the easy parts (fast). 

This was a fantastic post! It should really almost be a sticky....

The original poster needs to learn to subdivide!

[hfmadopter]

thanks
sorry but I dont get what is your suggestion: adding "+" in the count between 1-2-3?
thanks

That's ok, the plus signs mean And.

[kevin69]

I find counting (internally or out loud) really interferes with my playing.
I act of consciously counting seems to get in the way of my muscle memory.

I expect i just need more practice though....

[d3boy2002]

Try and play from different mental perspectives, then find the mental state that works best for you.
For myself, I found that a simply focused conscious, but largely subconscious state works best when I've already learned the notes. Working from the proper mental state will save you time in the long run during practice.

[lorcar]

hi everyone, still the original poster here...
studying the BWv 926 and struggling...

At 39yo and with a desk job during the day, this piece shows my biggest problem: my lack of inner tempo. It seems I can’t still feel the inner beat, so when during the last bars the 1/8th becomes 1/16th, and I am supposed to play the 12 notes in the same exact bar, my tempo goes all over the places, in a very incoherent relationship with what I had played until then. So my teacher here in Italy makes me play very slow, so slow I cant hear the music anymore. But again, I have problem in listening the tempo of the piece, in understanding that if I played at this speed until this bar, then I should play at this other speed the next bar. I had the same trouble with another Bach piece, where I had 1/8th an the left hand and a trill at the right. The left hand started to get faster, as if following what fingers in the right hand were doing…
What can you suggest besides what's already said? is there a way to increase the perception of inner tempo?
i am really thinking of quitting

[j_menz]

Try playing those bars (bars 39-43) just playing every second note (so, in bar 39 just the FCAFFD) These fall on the same divisions as the quavers (8th notes you've been playing all along. Repeat doing this several times until you get the feel of it. Then start to fit the other notes in.

[diomedes]

i am really thinking of quitting

Maturity and internal development require time and perseverance. In the past i had many "immature" technical issues that typically resolved indirectly, namely you as someone approaching the instrument develop in a parallel line with such a technical issue. Therefore not as direct.

Just my personal experience.