Rhythm

[penguin11]

Hello,
I recently realised that I have almost completely neglected to work on rhythm in almost all music I have played. I did some clapping with my first piano teacher in beginner pieces, but then things escalated and I suddenly found myself in a talent program for young musicians, and from there on my work on rhythm actually got worse and worse.

After having recieved private instruction from one of the leading pianists in my country for some years, I got accepted into a bachelor study in piano. Looking back I can not believe how I got so far, because when I hear recordings from where I was 13-23, the rhythm was very often non-existent, and there were seldom any clear plan behind my choices regarding timing. What I mean is that I started learning almost every piece by adding rubato, trying to replicate what I heard from recordings of elite pianists, instead of getting a clear picture of the time aspect. There were also many tempo fluctuations which did not serve the music well, to say it mildly.

What is interesting is that the pieces which I playd best were among others Schoenberg op. 19, and some other music were it was obvious that the best thing I could do was to be very strict with rhythm, and keep the same tempo throughout the whole piece. So I obviously managed to play rhythmically if I wanted, but I very seldom cared to do the work on how to play the music in strict time, with even note values.

When I play my old pieces now I almost get embarassed. In pieces like Debussy prelude no. 7 from book 1, the chords after the arpeggio section in the beginning were completely out of time, and at the time of learning the piece I actually did not bother to check which beats the chords should land on. I was that ignorant.

Sorry for the rant, but I just had to get this out somewhere, and my family are not that enthusiastic when listening to my discoveries in music.

Have any of you had the same experience, and how did it turn out for you after you started working on rhythm with more respect?

[keypeg]

Some years ago when I shared a recording, someone said "I cannot follow your pulse."  Well, essentially I didn't have much of a sense of pulse.  There's been a lot of work in that direction since then. And the thing is that you can't hear what you cannot yet hear.  Later on you can, and your old recordings might make you wince here and there. 

[penguin11]

One thing is to hear yourself correctly, but in my case I think I just needed to know be aware of the importance of hearing yourself. Implementing every inch of the body in the process of eliminating rhythmical inaccuracies was more or less just hard work. After I did this the last months, I have come to the conclusion that music is about 90% math, whatever math is...

I wonder how things could turn out when I got into a decent music academy and did reasonably well in music competitions while paying <5% attention to rhythm (Schoenberg op. 19, and some other modern music). Both the expression and technique seems to follow naturally after I implemented the new approach.
 

[anacrusis]

One thing is to hear yourself correctly, but in my case I think I just needed to know be aware of the importance of hearing yourself. Implementing every inch of the body in the process of eliminating rhythmical inaccuracies was more or less just hard work.

Could you elaborate on how you did this work? What did you do specifically?

[penguin11]

Please see this thread: https://forum.pianoworld.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/3220488/1.html

[lostinidlewonder]

Since you are not being specific with actual bars of music and recordings of your playing my following advice is generalised.

Rhythm in itself is mathematical, the division of time and playing within it. There is rhythm in isolated hands and the rhythm created between the hands. When it comes to tempo alterations such as rubato, or slowing and speeding up effects, the rhythms are still quite square and mathematical but are stretched and compressed.

When you are analysing your music you should be able to divide each bar up in with respect to the time signature and reveal the beats and segmentations of time between the strong beats as required. You should be able to count in many ways (with numbers, rhythmic solfege, specific note value pulse sensing [eg using the fastest note as one pulse unit to sense a phrase]) or tap out the rhythms of the hands working together (sometimes tapping out the hands in isolation is extra work because often the hands can rely on one another to keep in time and thus make the situation easier).

When you play a piece you should be able to play phrases or parts of it strictly in time as if you were playing with a metronome, then you can apply any alterations away from a strict timing for artistic effect as required. It is usually not good if you merely play what you hear in your head and cannot control your music in some kind of strict manner, that can leave you open to estimated type playing and lack of control.

[penguin11]

The last part of your answer resonated very well with how I usually felt when playing, especially in front of an audience. The funny thing is that I felt most in controll when playing Schoenberg, and other more modern stuff.

Anyway, here is a recording of the aforementioned pieces by Debussy: https://soundcloud.com/great-snipe/debussy. As I have said in the other forum, I never played the music in strict time when I started learning them, which I now understand maybe was a mistake.

I find now that the endless oppurtunities to improve accuracy in rhythm are v e r y inspiring, and I almost feel like a surgeon now, trying to perfect the eveness etc.

[lostinidlewonder]

The Debussy preludes though often have space for larger than usual interpretive takes on them so is not so obvious to most listeners if you are not so exact, so in reality it doesn't matter so much so than other works.

[timothy42b]

One thing is to hear yourself correctly,

Yes, and that is a difficult skill to learn.  You can't really produce music without a sound in your head, but the sound in your head interferes with your perception of the actual sound.  It is my suspicion that the biggest difference with the prodigy is that they hear, or learn to hear, the actual sound and can correct it much faster than the rest of us.  This is worse on wind instruments where the tone is less dependent on the physical instrument. 

I wonder how things could turn out when I got into a decent music academy and did reasonably well in music competitions while paying <5% attention to rhythm (Schoenberg op. 19, and some other modern music). Both the expression and technique seems to follow naturally after I implemented the new approach.

So much of piano instruction and practice is solitary that this is almost inherent to pianists.  The cure for this is ensemble work but that's not so easy for a pianist, especially in the early years, and impossible for most amateurs.  You could take up another instrument for that experience, but then your available practice time is limited.  Organists are even worse, it is rare to find one with good time and pulse, but part of that is probably the delay between key press and reverb in the hall. 
 

[penguin11]

Thanks for all the feedback!

[penguin11]

After having practices a couple of months with more focus on rhythm I have gathered some questions.
-First, I am interested in how the body behaves when playing in time as opposed to playing out of time. Do the movements of the arms, hands, fingers etc. automatically recalibrate into more natural movements?

-I find it is difficult to keep time in slow music, with many and long pauses, vs. similar figures of quavers etc. How can I improve timing and hear when I play out of time in for instance 2. mov. of Beethoven`s sonata op. 7?

PS. I am a little bit reluctant to use a metronome

[jamienc]

PS. I am a little bit reluctant to use a metronome

There’s your answer right there.

I use a metronome constantly when practicing. People mistake the metronome for a speed device. It isn’t. It’s a rhythmic and physical control device. When used properly it tells you where your rhythms are incorrect and more importantly where you might be compressing or decompressing beats. It helps provide a sense of space within the beat so you can achieve clarity and evenness. If you ever wonder why good pianists sound so refined, it is due to the excellent management of that “space between the notes” that Debussy was quoted as saying where the real music resides.

You don’t have to play metronomically at the end result of your practice, but when conditioned to practice with it regularly, you become much more aware of that space and how things are operating among the smaller divisions of the pulse.

[quantum]

PS. I am a little bit reluctant to use a metronome

The metronome is a tool used to define a reference to pulse, to give a quantitative repeatable value to the speed of a beat.  IMO the metronome should never be used to correct deficiencies in rhythm or unsteadiness of pulse.  I know many teachers (including one of my own) use the metronome in an attempt to correct uncertainties of pulse and rhythm, and I remain steadfast in the assertion that this is completely and utterly wrong and an abusive use of the tool. 

If there is an uncertainty with pulse or rhythm the root cause lies internally, and thus the solution is to be found internally.  If one relies on a metronome to correct the issue, it will only be a patchwork, a bandage, a crutch - it will temporarily fix the symptom, but not address the root.  The unaddressed problem will continue to reappear in subsequent studies of new pieces.  If this goes on long enough the musician will develop a dependency, an addiction, a tool-abuse towards the metronome to define pulse.

If one wants to improve a sense of pulse and rhythm, one needs to develop the ability to self-generate a consistent, reliable pulse, to have the sense of an atomic clock within oneself.  A quality sense of internalized pulse involves the whole body and mind, it is not something to just tap it with your fingers, rather, it resonates throughout your entire body with gravitas, resists any external attempt to derail its authority, and is completely in tune with living and breathing music. 

-First, I am interested in how the body behaves when playing in time as opposed to playing out of time. Do the movements of the arms, hands, fingers etc. automatically recalibrate into more natural movements?

Playing in time should not feel like you are chasing the beat, or forcing yourself to conform to an awkward pattern.  Playing in time needs to feel like you are sitting in the groove, like all elements of the music naturally fall into alignment when in time.  It should fit like a glove, or like that super comfortable old leather shoe. 

Think of walking.  Most people can do this at a consistent pulse without much thought.  If we are recovering from a leg injury, we make make strained efforts to think about simple things like:  which foot should go next, how to bend one's knee when doing this or that.  But what we want is to get back to some form of able bodied walking.  The feel of solid musical pulse and rhythm would be akin to the feeling of natural, unencumbered walking. 

In one of my university courses, a majority of the rhythmic exercises were done while walking.  It emphasized the importance of involving the whole body.

-I find it is difficult to keep time in slow music, with many and long pauses, vs. similar figures of quavers etc. How can I improve timing and hear when I play out of time in for instance 2. mov. of Beethoven`s sonata op. 7?

In slow music, subdivide beats to maintain an easy frame of reference.  For example, instead feeling the beat in quarter notes, feel the eighths or sixteenths. 

Pauses, breaths, spaces between phrases all contain movement.  Pulse does not stop when the music presents a pause.  The pause needs to contain pulse, as well as relate to the surrounding material.  A musical pause is not arbitrary, but an integral part of the fabric of the musical pulse.  Feel the groove through the pulse, subdivide if needed, rather than sit and wait for the music to start up again.

[penguin11]

Very interesting answers from both of you! From what I have read about pianists from the golden age, they seemed to use the metronome only as a control once in a while, and not to establish an internal sense of rhythm. They (Hofmann, Backhaus etc.) were of course on a completely different level , but maybe it could be possible for mortals as well, only to a smaller degree. Musicians were able to develop a good rhythmic sense before the metronome was invented (beginning of 19th century in Europe?), so I can`t see any reason why we should have to rely on it today. But after years of neglecting work on rhythm it is certainly tempting to use it for a while now!

Getting into the flow of music is a fascinating concept and it would be interesting to compare how the body works when playing in flow vs. not playing in flow to see how the movements change. I have read and heard countless descriptions on how to move the body while playing, but I think this is a wrong approach. I suspect that many, if not all issues, concerning movements of the body will naturally disappear when rhythmic problems are eradicated. The body will align with the music.

[jamienc]

Although I certainly respect the comments made by quantum, I am going to have to respectfully disagree. The reason is because when practicing, one is faced with so many active variables that it is very easy to be spread too thin if some of the fundamental skills in playing music are not “internalized” as mentioned in the post above (consequently I’m super excited that term was used). Elements such as rhythm, meter, articulation, dynamics, when all combined, create a near-perfect environment for over saturation. It is all too easy in that scenario to let certain elements suffer due attention to make the music intelligible and fluid. When Cortot mentions in his Rational Principles of Pianoforte Technique that one should “study not only the difficult passage, but the difficulty itself reduced to its most fundamental principles,” he means it.

The principles in question are rhythm and meter. These are obviously not mutually exclusive, as one needs to be present to make the other “correct” for lack of a better term. On the hierarchy, I definitely place meter (or pulse) as a more fundamental necessity to understand before rhythm can begin to be corrected. This is due to the fact that meter is often much less variable than the rhythm can be in any work of music. But therein lies a very subtle relationship that is difficult to manage all at once unless, as quantum mentioned, the skill is internally sorted out. I find that learners with rhythmic problems often lose track of the meter due to the heavy skewing of attention toward the rhythmic variability of what is being played. If this is the case, the person will need some kind of “external” stimulus to keep track of the meter so they can start making that process “internal.” Without it, there will likely be further frustration and a much longer road to success will ensue.

Certainly not trying to be combative, but I was somewhat perplexed to read quantum at the top of the post regarding the metronome being wrongly used to correct rhythmic inaccuracies, but then later suggest walking as a means to doing to. Isn’t walking just another version of a metronome? I understand that walking would physically involve the body in establishing that fundamental sense of meter upon which rhythm can be manipulated, but sooner or later, the person is going to have to sit at the keyboard and work it all out.

In penguin’s case it seems as if the relationship of the meter and rhythm is not yet realized to its full potential, and balancing (or managing) the two elements is crucial for any improvement in rhythmic accuracy to occur. Perhaps walking with the score is helpful! Maybe indicating in the score where the metrical pulses reside will provide a helpful “visual” cue of where the beats are and how the rhythmic divisions/subdivisions operate amidst the click of a metronome. Whatever the case, the subtle relationship of the two elements needs to be brought back into a healthier balance as opposed to being skewed heavily toward the rhythmic complexity.

[brogers70]

I never liked the metronome, and my teachers never recommended it. I've heard two arguments against its frequent use. The first is like quantum's, that the metronome will become a crutch, you'll never develop an internal pulse, and when you perform you'll have no consistent beat. The other is that using the metronome will give you a machine-like sense of the beat and that you will perform metronomically, without any breath or space in your playing. Those arguments cannot both be correct, at least in the case of a single individual; using the metronome cannot both prevent you from developing an internal pulse and cause you to develop an internal pulse that is too strict.

Now I find the metronome helpful in a few different ways. It's a check for me to see where I am unconsciously speeding up or slowing down. There's nothing necessarily wrong with changing tempo in the course of a given movement, but I think it's good to do it intentionally rather than unconsciously. It shows me where my problems are in fast passages. It puts a bit of performance anxiety into the mix, and it's helpful to work on playing with that. Most of the time I play without it, but it's useful in these specific cases. And it never seems to me that playing a piece through with the metronome locks me into an overly rigid tempo once I've turned it off. Any tool can be misused, but I find this tool useful.

[timothy42b]

The metronome is a tool used to define a reference to pulse, to give a quantitative repeatable value to the speed of a beat.  IMO the metronome should never be used to correct deficiencies in rhythm or unsteadiness of pulse. 

I've played in a musical pit a few times, and in practicing my parts I found a metronome essential.

These are jazz rhythms, and the beat can be obscure.  But one thing for sure, if you get off a beat while working a syncopated section, you aren't getting back in; there's often no recognizable place. 

So when i prepared I used a metronome with a distinctly different beat one sound.  It is so easy to think you're landing on one correctly when you're not. 

Obviously I never used one in performance!

As far as overuse developing too strict a steady pulse, I suspect it may be a myth.  But only because I've never run into anyone with that problem - quite the opposite!

[penguin11]

Whatever the case, the subtle relationship of the two elements needs to be brought back into a healthier balance as opposed to being skewed heavily toward the rhythmic complexity.

By rhythmic complexity, do you mean rubato, or maybe in my case, distorting the time element until the it becomes more or less unrecognisble? 

[jamienc]

By rhythmic complexity, do you mean rubato, or maybe in my case, distorting the time element until the it becomes more or less unrecognisble?

What I mean by rhythmic complexity is the endless variability of rhythm that can occur on top of a metrical system that is relatively stable. In other words, rhythm can have so many combinations and variations that the rhythmic element itself may be much more of a focus than the meter which holds it all together and makes it intelligible. When the metrical system is lost or not given its due attention, that is typically where rhythmic problems will make themselves apparent. This is what you probably mean when you say “distorting the time element.” By placing more focus on the metrical system and how the rhythm interacts with it will help clear up some of the problems you may have with managing all the different combinations within the repertoire you are playing.

All of the suggestions here in this thread are great ways to clear up some of the rhythmic issues you might be having, but at the moment, becoming more familiar with the meter as you are working at the piano is a priority if rhythmic interpretation is to be improved. That is why a metronome or the walking technique mentioned by quantum should be used regularly until you are confident that you don’t lose track of the pulse/meter while dealing with the beats and subdivisions. You might also require a visual cue to help keep track of the beat in the music for rhythms that are more wild. Have you tried placing some kind of indicator in your music where the beats are, and even where the subdivisions occur? For example, maybe a vertical line above each beat and something different for the offbeat? This might help organize the smaller durations that fall between as well.

Technology today has made it quite easy to fix such things. The free metronome I use is called Dr. Betotte and it allows for all kinds of interesting signatures and subdivisions that might help you get a sense of where things are supposed to happen in your pieces. It allows the quarter, eighth, sixteenth, and even the triplet along with the option to control the volume level at each duration. Running that while looking at the music might help get that “feel” for how your body should be reacting within a consistent and stable pulse. Let us know if you have found a method that helped you improve!

[timothy42b]

What I mean by rhythmic complexity is the endless variability of rhythm that can occur on top of a metrical system that is relatively stable. In other words, rhythm can have so many combinations and variations that the rhythmic element itself may be much more of a focus than the meter which holds it all together and makes it intelligible. When the metrical system is lost or not given its due attention, that is typically where rhythmic problems will make themselves apparent. This is what you probably mean when you say “distorting the time element.” By placing more focus on the metrical system and how the rhythm interacts with it will help clear up some of the problems you may have with managing all the different combinations within the repertoire you are playing.

I like your approach. 

I would disagree slightly that there is endless variety.  Depending on what genre you play in, the actual rhythms you encounter may vary very little.  The total number of rhythms that the average musician encounters is small enough you don't really need to count them; you can just memorize them all by rote (and in some cases that's the only possible way to play them.)

But as you suggest, the trick is to fit them into the underlying system.