Beginners polyrthyms

[bilgekaana]

How can I play 4:3 polyrthyms I seriously can't play them. Even with slow tempos.

For example this passage.
Quite easy but I can't do it , Any advice ?

[brogers70]

I've heard two general approaches. One is to play the hands separate over and over and over, and then just go for it. Some people find that this works very well. I never did.

The other approach is more mathematical. Divide each beat in to 12. Figure out on which 12th of a beat which hand is playing. Tap it out very slowly with your hands on your thighs or on a table top, something like

RH 1234567891011 12 1
LH 12345678910 11 12 1

If you practice that mathematically until you can do it pretty fast, you should eventually start to feel both the 3 and the 4, each in their own hand. Once you have that feeling, you can go to the piano and practice hitting some note with each hand as you beat out the 3 against 4. Then you can solidify it by practicing scales with triplet eighths in the LH and sixteenths in the RH. After a while it will feel natural.

[chrismaninoff]

Hi bilgekaana,

I'm currently working on my polyrhythms a lot, so I have some tips for you.  These are things I have done to learn polyrhythms like 7:8 and 11:12, so they work, I promise!

This video and the suggested videos will give you all the help you need, but if you prefer the written format, that will follow.

https://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=2ahUKEwiwubXX5dToAhVBZc0KHfeGCr0QtwIwAHoECAkQMA&url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DU9CgR2Y6XO4&usg=AOvVaw17_E6QeGQgGQ2tDIqA-Z9l

1) learn the composite rhythm.  This means that you should learn how a polyrhythm should sound, without acknowledging that different rhythms are happening in different parts.  For example, 2 against three sounds like "long, short, short, long" (or "You... are my son...") and 3 against 4 sounds like "long, short, medium, medium, short long" ("Pass... the god damn butter")

2) practice tapping this rhythm or clapping it, and once you can do it, try to focus on one hand or the other, so that the other becomes subconscious.  For instance, tap in 3 on one knee and in 4 on the other, with a big slap on the downbeat, and practice counting along with each hand separately and making sure you still line up.

3) practice it slowly on the piano.  You can try it in scales if you want an intermediate step, or go straight to your pieces.  Again, first think of the composite rhythm, and then once that is comfy, try to just listen to whichever hand you want to project.

hope that helps!

[ranjit]

You have to get the 4:3 polyrhythm in your "ear". What worked for me is simultaneously tapping on a table -- 4 times with my right hand in the same duration as tapping 3 times in the left. In order to get the timing right, I subdivided the beat into 12 parts, and mathematically mapped out which subdivision to play with which hand.

I practiced this rhythm exercise for a week or two, until I was able to imagine the polyrhythm. Paying attention to the sound on a table or something might also help, it goes "Duh-tu du-tu, du-tu du-uh" and has a kind of driving rhythm to it -- in the first "Duh-tu" the "Duh" is longer than the "tu", as compared to the second one. Get a feel for that rhythm. (It's much easier to explain verbally lol )

Intellectually, of course, this is what the exercise maps to, as brogers70 pointed out.
RH 12345678910 11 12 1
LH 12345678 9 10 11 12 1


I was attempting Fantaisie Impromptu. So, the first thing I did was to play the 4:3 polyrhythm with a single note in the right hand and a single note in the left. That worked to isolate the difficulty of the polyrhythm. Then, I came up with random "exercises", playing a scale in the right hand and accompaniment in the left hand in 4:3, playing Fantaisie Impromptu's left hand pattern while playing something simple in the right hand, etc. Then, I put it all together.

The whole process took about a month.

[cantilena]

I absolutely agree with the tapping method.  Here's my story:

A drummer friend of mine taught me this exercise many years ago. With one hand, tap half notes. With the other hand, begin by tapping out whole notes. Easy, right? Then tap out half notes. Your hands will be tapping exactly the same rhythm, so you should be getting bored by this point. lol.

Now, keep tapping half notes with the first hand, and tap out triplet half notes with the second hand. This is when it gets tricky, because you need to subdivide each half note into triplets, and tap on 1, 3, and 5 with the second hand.

After this, you're on easy street, because the next exercise is to tap quarter notes with your second hand. Back to super easy.

Next is tapping out 5 over 2 with your second hand. I still find this one extremely tricky. Remember that the second half note in your first hand will fall precisely between the third and fourth taps on your second hand.

Then you're back to triplets, but triplet eighths this time. Keep the half note going with your first hand, and tap triplet eighths with your other hand.

Next is 7 over 2, which is at least as tricky as 5 over 2.  You can use kind of the same strategy, though: the second half note tap will fall exactly between the fourth and fifth taps of the 7.

And finally, tap eighth notes with the second hand while keeping that steady half note going with the first.

If you want to go on to 9, 10, 11, and further, be my guest. lol.  I usually stop there and then go backwards:  7 over 2, eighth note triplets, 5 over 2, quarter notes, triplet half notes, half notes, and finally a whole note, all the while keeping a steady half note going with my first hand.

A metronome can be very useful with this kind of exercise.

Happy tapping!