Need advice about rhythm training

[tombikadam]

The students' music theory is very weak, especially rhythm is a big problem, is there a method or book to fix this? They don't know which note comes on which beat

[escaperoad]

Yoy can try starting with simple exercises where students clap the rhythm while counting aloud. This builds a strong connection between beats and note values.

[keypeg]

The students' music theory is very weak, especially rhythm is a big problem, is there a method or book to fix this? They don't know which note comes on which beat

If you're the teacher than you have to analyze/figure out what the student knows and doesn't know, what needs to be built, at which level.  You don't start with a method book.  You start with what needs to be taught, and then look for tools to help you. As teacher, you created the program, which in one-on-one is both planned but loose and interactive.

[plukmusic]

I would suggest that they write in the counts and tap and count the rhythms out loud. I've got some more instructions here if you're interested. https://www.pianolessonsuk.co.uk/pianolessonsuk-blog/sight-reading-tips-grades-1-and-2-abrsm

[jonslaughter]

The students' music theory is very weak, especially rhythm is a big problem, is there a method or book to fix this? They don't know which note comes on which beat

Obviously there are many books that "teach rhythm".

What you need to do is explain what rhythm is and the importance of it and how to go about learning it and then show them all the divisions to a metronome and relate it to musical pieces.  You must get into their head why learning rhythm is important and that it is actually a thing that all good musicians do and understand innately.

It depends on the student and so only you know the specifics and it depends on how well you know about rhythm and timing yourself. If you too are weak then you won't be able to help much(blind leading the blind). Of course the student may resist learning such things because they don't see the point which, again, is why you have to try to motivate them. But  if you get bogged down in trying to get them to learn it and they are not making progress in other areas or become frustrated then you are being counter productive.

If you think you can show them something one week and the next week they will have it down perfectly then you are not looking at it right.

What I find is that a lot of people that understand things fail to realize how difficult it was for them to figure it out in the first place or that others might have difficulty. Rhythm was very difficult for me when I started.  It is something I did not get even though I understood perfectly the mathematics. I just could not connect it to music and did not believe that musicians "felt" music that way. It seemed to me that it got in the way of music.

It took a lot of practice with a metronome, counting all the divisions, and connecting it to music to finally "master" it. It's obvious now but I was oblivious before. I think part of it is that it's just very boring when isolated and doesn't feel musical. Playing the drums and specifically connecting it to things you hear is important. E.g., when a triplet is played in something that is duple one should be able to notice it. Or when something is in compound meter it has a certain "feel" and that feel is a certain rhythm. Blues has the shuffle feel and Jazz typically is a swing feel. One has to connect the "theory" with the music.

So listening to music and knowing what it is in and knowing specifically what it means is important and really what makes the difference.

All non-understanding is because it is not understood. The only way to understand something is to connect it to thinks and make connections that then build a web that understanding and grow upon(and it is a continuous process).

Also, you should not have high expectations. Your goal is to try and expose the student to these ideas and try to get them to work on them in fun ways and get them to connect the relevance to what they want to accomplish. A lot of times it isn't that they can't do it but they don't know the importance of it(and can't until after the fact). So they just have to force themselves to work on it but that is boring and hard. It's your job to make it interesting.

E.g., get some music they like and count everything. Show them that it can be counted. If it is fast then slow it down and show them how every note, every chord change, every melodic line, etc has a rhythm and that by practicing rhythm it helps one immediately hear it and then be able to play it. So if they want to learn a part they can do it because they can hear the rhythm(and ultimately the harmony and melody).

Basically you have to give context. The "just do it because I said so because this is how I learned" doesn't cut it. It is hard because there is limited time to teach a lot of stuff but what else do you have to do?