How to develop a "pulse"

[bernadette60614]

And,yes, I have one otherwise I wouldn't be here
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My teacher tells me I need to work on developing a "pulse" when I play.

I must admit I detest counting and finding it distracting and difficult to maintain, but I'll do what I have to do..

Any advice would be appreciated.

Thank you!

[outin]

My teacher tells me I need to work on developing a "pulse" when I play.

I must admit I detest counting and finding it distracting and difficult to maintain, but I'll do what I have to do..

Any advice would be appreciated.

I think counting is the way to go. I have encountered a couple of people who have problems with pulse and they both seem to avoid counting, no matter how much you tell them they should.

I don't always like it either (pieces with a lot of ornaments can be a pain to count), but sometimes it's just necessary to get the pulse correct in my head. Even pieces I have already learned for a while really benefit from playing them through every now and then, counting in my head.

Sometimes I just go through again the measures in the score, just reminding myself how the pulse should go. It's easy to get the pulse messed up in complicated passages if just playing through from memory and you may also get used to hearing the wrong pulse and forget how it really should be. I may even mark the pulse in the score to remind myself...

[m1469]

I must admit I detest counting and finding it distracting and difficult to maintain, but I'll do what I have to do..

If it is truly distracting, what do you find it to be distracting you away from, exactly?

While counting itself can be helpful intellectually in understanding how to divide note values into beats and partials of beats, I have never encountered a student for whom counting alone truly gets them in touch with a natural sense of pulse.  And, in most cases (all?), if they have no former association with the concept, they will count out of time just as readily as play out of time - so either way, something about it is missing and needs to be learned.  Ultimately, I believe that pulse is not actually something we develop, but something we and music innately have, and it's a matter of allowing oneself to find it (and trust it).  

Hands down, absolutely no comparison, the most successful way I have found (so far) for any individual to find a sense of pulse if they don't seem to already be aware of it, is through percussive activity.  In fact, I will actually handle pulse separately from day one in this way, with almost every student (unless I am under the impression there is a better/different way for that individual).  I do not teach counting from the beginning, and if they are in my private studio (vs. in my classroom), they play a drum that has a very pleasant, full sound.  

Every student without exception gravitates towards this, and most hope for and look forward to it being part of their lesson.  Once I see that they are really grasping the concept (and are reading rhythms), and once they have a good grasp on finger control in groups of notes, I will bring over the concept from drum to piano/sheetmusic in a more formal way (I will have likely been prepping them through aural dictation of their pieces, without them realizing it), and in most cases the light goes on behind their eyes immediately.  It does not mean they can all execute perfect rhythm and finger control as a perfect unit right off the bat, but I can see they are capable of making the association and we'll work with it from there.

Adults may not be as likely to want to go this route, though I have had some who are.  One woman in particular has a very strong background in athletics and dance, and so we/she draws mainly from that and it works for her.  But, generally, I find there is a lot which is applicable and can be learned from teaching younger ones as I explained above.

[ted]

My old teacher gave me heaps of boogie, stride, ragtime and swing. I cannot remember doing any counting at all as a kid but I do recall my father imparting to me a strong love of and feeling for syncopation. Also, I think listening to a lot of rhythmic genres cannot help but inculcate a very firm sense of rhythm. After all, pulse is just the simplest possible sort of rhythm.

[quantum]

Try walking to music.  Most people will have a fairly consistent pulse when walking.  It is actually takes quite a bit of effort to deviate from a walking pulse you are familiar with.  Now obviously the piano is not a very portable instrument, so it is impractical to play the keyboard and walk.  But you can sing or you can carry a drum to beat on.  We did an exercise in university where we would walk around the classroom and drum out various rhythms.  The trick is to fit the music inside the pulse your feet make when they contact the ground. 

[outin]

I think we tend use the word pulse sligthly differently here. I assume with most adults the problem is not the lack of ability to keep a steady pulse as such, but rather to correctly emphasize the beats while still keeping the pulse steady. If one is used to learn familar pieces partly by ear, one may not really understand and learn the rhythm, but is rather just trying to mimic what one is hearing. Less work, but often not completely consistent results. Don't know about the op, but I am currently studying theory with a little group, where this seems to be the problem. Learning to count the rhythm correctly just seems to be too much work for some, and one can actually hear it in the inconsistency of their playing. I am guilty of such lazyness myself sometimes, but my teacher will always catch me

Maybe you should just play more Baroque, that might help? It simply sounds horrible if it's not 100% correct 

[hfmadopter]

Try walking to music.  Most people will have a fairly consistent pulse when walking.  It is actually takes quite a bit of effort to deviate from a walking pulse you are familiar with.  Now obviously the piano is not a very portable instrument, so it is impractical to play the keyboard and walk.  But you can sing or you can carry a drum to beat on.  We did an exercise in university where we would walk around the classroom and drum out various rhythms.  The trick is to fit the music inside the pulse your feet make when they contact the ground. 

A spin off of this is counting while pedaling a bike. I use the right pedal as the beat, gear the bike up or down for tempo. The left pedal is the partial beat. Hopefully I can get back on my bike this year after last summers health derailment, healthy for the mind and body and obviously tempo and beat. I don't count the entire time I'm riding but for a certain period of time each time I go off on the bike.

Otherwise I like m1469's drum idea, you don't have to have a formal drum you can tap on a table top just as well. But I like the drum idea ! I find myself tapping a pen on my desk at work a lot, oh wait a minute that's because I'm zoned out these days ! No seriously, try it during your breaks etc.

[m1469]

Oh!  I just remembered something else for if you are already playing the piece well but just needing a more defined sense of pulse and motion.  Playing with somebody(s) else who already has it can be very helpful.  For example, playing with your teacher during a lesson!  I thought Abby Whiteside made an interesting point about pianists and instrumentalists who rise above themselves when playing with an orchestra, because with the orchestra the pianist/instrumentalist connects to pulse/rhythm in a way that they don't necessarily on their own.

[timothy42b]

I'm a believer in counting.  I have people count out loud as well as write the counts on their music. 

I also like subdividing but it seems to help me more than struggling students.

I think the drum approach works because the gross motor movement is more easily controlled.  This past weekend I rang handbells all day at a festival.  Because I direct I rarely get the chance to ring much.  I have a solid pulse and I knew exactly where the beat was, but there were places where I needed to play very softly but very precisely with the left hand, and I found it difficult not because of counting but because of coordination.  Does that make sense?  A beginning piano student may have the double problem of not being sure where the beat is AND not being able to get the key down exactly when she wants. 

I also think pulse must periodically be recalibrated as it tends to fade, especially as we age.  As m1469 points out, this may happen automatically if you play with an ensemble, but with solo practice there isn't any feedback for how you're doing, unless you take care to put a metronome on it and check it.