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Yeah, fair point. I prefer such things to be felt with some kind of pulse still operating behind them (even if not the notated rhythm).

I would go even further. The sense of pulse is the most critical element of music performance, on which all else is based. It's almost impossible to teach if a person is lacking, and we don't want it to degrade in those who have it.

When a student hesitates, the pulse normally stops. If we taught him to continue the pulse in his head, the hesitation might not do as much harm.

Ah. Yes. But I don't hear note-note. I hear note-time-note. All three equally important.

A question I consider still open is whether any given pair of notes can be learned without timing. For example, a blind leap of a tenth. We could practice it slowly as whole note to whole note. Or we could do it slowly without a set time. I don't ever do the latter, because I think learning is faster and more permanent when done in time. But I don't have proof it is superior, just a sense that it is (and concurrence of a large number of brass playing colleagues).

Absolutely. I completely agree that an internal pulse should be felt during this pause. And I stress that the student MUST stop and go back. If the pulse stops, the playing should also stops (except to make the single difficult connection that could not be managed in tempo). Then there's no problem. Sloppy sense of long-term pulse only comes when the student thinks it's okay to stop and start whenever they feel like it but then keep going. I don't think anyone advocates that.

In the final result, yes. I don't hear note-note either- unless I am covering an individual difficulty in order to prepare myself to put everything together in unbroken rhythm, without straining for notes. That which we depend on our physical reactions the most for is the connections from note to note. You cannot feel a slow piece solely 'physically' for the rhythm. Rhythm is more mental. If you have a good grasp of rhythm, stopping once to check a note will not damage your ability to mentally grasp the rhythm- assuming you cover the difficulty that prevented the rhythm being realised and then go back to reinstate it. This is a must. Those who problems simply don't go back to correct anything. However, guessing notes can cause major issues in the physical instincts.

Also, it cannot be compared to brass playing. There's not the same physical relation between notes. Piano playing is all about a series of unbroken physical connections. I believe that for brass players, it's more a sense of landing on each note the same way, regardless of where you come from. It doesn't destroy the whole chain, in the same way if you screw up one note but go on to the get the next right. On the piano it's usually a break between two particular links, that causes a break in the long-term flow. Fix that single link and you're ready to put the whole chain back together as a unified whole. Guess what it might be and the problems begin...

As an example, students often screw up between two lines of music. If so, I always get them to play the last note of the line and the first of the next and repeat it until the distance is fully sensed. When they feel the physical distance between them, they usually bridge the gap very easily and with no stop. The problem was simply that they didn't know how to connect the notes. Not that they had no grasp of the rhythm. If they guessed the notes, that would put them no closer to getting both notes and rhythm. There is literally no rhythmic context whatsoever, to doing this act of connecting two fingers. However, it reinstates the flow between two lines virtually every single time. Isolate and fix the break in the chain and you have a whole- both in the rhythm and the notes. An accurate link in the chain is the only source of benefit.

Another thought:

What would be easier? You learn a series of notes in a particular rhythm. Then you have to completely change the rhythm in which those notes are played, or you have to play a completely different series of notes in the same rhythm (reading these new bars off the page- not improvising on them)?

I think it's safe to say that it would be harder to play a whole new series of notes. I think this serves to illustrate how much more physical the notes are and how much more mental the rhythmic issues are. Also, I often practise dotted rhythms for difficult semiquavers but I have NEVER inadvertently strayed into doing that while playing normally. The rhythm is guided much more by the head, than by the physical sensations. Anyone who has a good sense of rhythm ought to be able to adapt the long-term proportions, once they have learned how to perform every one of the individual physical connections. However, having pre-learned a rhythm is not going to make life much easier when you have all new notes (unless you're a truly hopeless counter). It would be scarcely easier than if you changed both the notes and the rhythm. Would Chopin's op. 25 no. 12 be easier, if you had practised op. 10 no. 1 before, because they both have semiquavers? Similarly, does anyone hesitating in those do so because they are unable to feel continuous semi-quaver movement? Or are the joins between the notes causing the difficulty? Surely it's self-evident that the key to stable rhythm there is to get all of the notes equally comfortable at the earliest possible stage. The idea of simply hacking your way through, being absolutely sure never to hesitate (at the expense of accuracy) doesn't bear thinking about. The results might be a little like this:

http://www.youtube.com/user/datruzepp#play/all/uploads-all/2/OVC9ESsA3Go

Again, this illustrates how limited the benefits of the rhythm are, if not accompanied by the correct physical connections. In terms of movements, the connections are the foundation for the movement as a whole. In any heirarchy, they have to come first. The rhythm is how these connections lie in proportion to each other. You can tweak the proportions for the rhythm very easily, but you don't want to be fooling around having to make adjustments to the very foundations.

Rhythmic stumbles (technical rubatos) arise because the student has not mastered the next sequence of notes or is unsure what they are, having blundered through many wrong repetitions at speed.

So you don't hear stumbles from kids playing very slowly? I do.

And your answer, I think, is of course you do at first. They learn the notes, then they learn to play the piece smoothly.

In other words, they learn notes and time separately. Notes first, then time later. I agree that this is frequently the case. I'm proposing it is inefficient and that the two can be learned together. Just as you try to structure practice to avoid errors in notes, you should try to structure practice avoid errors in time. The reason you should do this is errors in time are more difficult to unlearn, and more obvious to a listener, than errors in note.

Beginners don't hear error well. They are protected by some kind neurological mechanism. But they seem to learn to hear note errors faster than rhythm errors. Many never learn to hear rhythm errors. That may be hardwired, but I suspect it is due to teaching that focuses more on notes than time.

"errors in time are ... more obvious to a listener, than errors in note.

Beginners don't hear error well ... But they seem to learn to hear note errors faster than rhythm errors."

So true!

Fair points. Nobody would deny that getting both right is the best situation. All that's being argued is that if something has to go, it's better to lose the rhythm than to take random guesses at notes for sake of maintaining it. Obviously everyone would prefer both to work equally well at once.


There is no reason to break with rhythm more than once over any connection. After you have learned how to connect two notes, you should immediately reinstate it. If it still doesn't work, you're going too fast. Once you find the speed where you can do both with thought and understanding, there is no problem. However, are you still standing by the idea that it's better to play the notes wrong than break the rhythm? That is all I would dispute (except in the situation of running through a piece as a rehearsal- after everything has been learned). I'd argue that notes must always come first- but that rhythm must follow immediately afterwards (and I mean phrase by phrase or even bar by bar- you should certainly never learn the notes for a whole piece outside of any rhythmic context) I'm happy for students to discard the rhythm in the short-term for the sake of note learning, but never in the long-term. If you approach the odd pause as a means of learning the connections that will enable steady rhythm (rather than see them as an alternative to bothering to play in time) then there need be no long-term compromises on either side.

Ultimately, the cardinal sin is to guess anything. If you're guessing at notes for the sake of keeping rhythm (with the hope of learning a piece), you're not going to make the progress you are capable of. If you're pausing, there's no guesswork involved. What matters is that you know that you are doing so, with the greater purpose of getting the notes so comfortable that you can play rhythmically without resorting to guesswork. Approach it this way, and nothing suffers.

I find myself now mostly in agreement with N.

Scarey, isn't it? <grin>

Yes.

You all apparently have much too much free time on your hands.