Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum Helping Students to Internalize a Steady Quarter Beat...(Metronome Not Allowed)

Metronomes are not exactly cutting edge technology - yeah, maybe the newer digital ones are, but the metronome as a tool has been in existence for a very long time, even if you had to wind it up and change the weight on the pendulum to change the tempo. Hence equating them with a computer is laughable, unless your computer also provides you with metronome beats but even then, the tool itself has existed for a long time, the computer has just added it as one of its many functions.

That having been said - use one.

Whether we personally advocate the use of a metronome or not, the original question pianoexcellence asked was for teachers to suggest some other ways of helping students internalize a steady beat, apart from the metronome.

And I think pianoexcellence did get some suggestions . I've always found it most effective to use many ways of approaching a concept rather than just one.

SantaFe,

Just got back from Flagstaff - my gosh, what beautiful country you're in.

Anyway, you just made my point. The metronome has been around for nearly 200 years. In fact, 2012 will be the Bicentennial. Beethoven was the first major composer to use it, and to annotate tempi with it, and that was just 3 years after it's invention! How about that for progressive?

Yes, but he never dreamed someone would try and play along with one.

Well, I don't have a time machine, so I can't be so positive about that statement.

For what it's worth I have come to the opinion that I actually think that playing to a metronome is a higher skill than playing on one's own. Let's go back to childhood. As a beginner I had more success playing songs I already knew and which had a strong quarter or semi tone beat: Twinkle, Twinkle, The British Grenadiers, The Toreodor's March from Carmen. Children could easily march or perform body movements in tandem with these songs. Most tempo problems occur with more advanced music: compound times, rests or tied notes or in technical areas of classical music or advanced popular music.

You may disagree, but I think that it may not be such a good thing for piano teachers to make beginners count aloud and also this includes the teacher counting aloud when they play and banging a ruler.

For many beginners piano playing and counting is equal to juggling whilst riding a bicycle. You have to learn them seperately at first. I think there is a strong case for the student to accompany music with body movement as much as possible away from the piano.

Music in the west is often created to a beat or measure, but music from other cultures such as Africa is often built up round the beat which is often the drum. And African dances related to later jazz forms show a remarkably complex rythmic interplay built over a simple drum beat.

European classical tradition being courtly and ecclesiastical in origin tries to sublimate the primal dance. But piano students need to lose the inhibition that the music is purely a mathematical exercise and they need to get body awareness of that music. This is the key I think. But how to achieve this with beginners must lie in their own musical responses and cannot be imposed by a metronome.

You cannot be serious! Right on, Arabesque.

KBK, I've found in life that absolutes are dangerous. Oh, oh, that sounds a lot like an absolute!

The only thing in life that's true is that there are no absolutes.

(OK, I don't really believe that, just a reference for you Star Wars fans) :b:

I thought I could escape them here!

[speaking as a choral director]

Have you tried teaching your students to conduct music? The basic "down in out up" 4/4 movement helps students visualize the beats in their numbered places and helps them emphasize the downbeat. It'll be even better if they can march in place while conducting.

But I'm out of tricks when it comes to subdividing beats. Some of my students can't get dotted rhythm vs. triplets. I tried to go the speaking route (1 e + a) vs (1 + a), but even that route doesn't always work for kids who are just really bad at rhythm.

Have you tried the "Not Diff-i-cult" for 3 vs 2 and "Not Ver-y Diff-i-cult" tapping and speaking for 4 vs. 3?

Food for thought, if this is acceptable:

Speech is rhythmic. Currently I am reading about the late Renaissance early Baroque emphasis on using speech as the expressive model. I listen to whatever examples come along: a beautiful sung piece with lute accompaniment this morning struck me as being very even rhythmically, with an added "plus". Listening more closely I discerned the natural rhythms of the sung words - the fact that it was in the French language, as well as in a period where poetic meter was being stressed, certainly helped. However, it seems that having the rhythm of language also involves going in harmony with nature rather than against nature, as mechanical metronomic following would seem to do. Can this be used, or is it?

AZN, a couple of other tricks for triplets, have them say, "tri-pul-ti" (rhymes with Tripoli).

Also, rather than counting out subdivisions, try having them just count the main pulses (ie 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.), but clap the rhythm as they count. That way, their brain is getting a sense of the overall pulse, but their hands are having to execute the proper rhythm.

Just to agree quickly with you, keystings, in a few contemporary examples:

Titles of songs as well as rhythmic matching to the spoken word:
"O(oooo)k-la-HO-ma" where the wind comes sweepin' o'er the plain, etc.
"Chi-CA-go", that wonderful town, etc.

Many songs do not so cleanly fit the rhythms with the syllables. Some are more theatrical or dramatic in nature and the words are extended in length and unnatural to speech patterns.
"Whoooooo is Syllll-vi-aaaaah? Whaaaat is sheeeee, that all her swaaaains com-mennnnnnnnd herrrrr?"

Exaggerated speech is like "The r-a-i-n in Sp-a-i-n stays m-a-i-nly on the Pl-a-i-n-s."

"Articulation" is a substudy in expressive touch.

Do these examples represent what you are saying or have I missed a point?

You have such a great mind for speech keystring!

Betty

Betty,
The precise catalyst for the thought comes from the development of music theory I have been reading about, and seeing its execution here:
O Jesu, Nomen Dulce Please scan down to the third piece by that name, (you'll see the image of notation) which will also permit following the notation. The singing is very nuanced and bel canto, with gentle swells and ebs within a note itself. Those swells and ebs are subservient to the nature of the words as they occur in speech. The music was written in the beginning of the Baroque period by Schutz, and both music and words were deliberately composed with the purpose in mind of allowing speech to govern. It was known as the Second Principle, stating that "Speech is the mistress of music" - mistress being the female form of master or leader and boss.

I am running "Oklahoma" through in my mind, and I don't think it follows this principle purely. The first "O" is exaggerated and unnatural to the word - the syllable follows the rule of music, and the musical beat is paramount. The word does not lead the music. However the nature of the word is taken into account with the "ho" of Oklahoma.

I am in the process of getting a first overview of music history, and so am delving into the principles of whatever period. There is a mindset that says natural speech is natural to us, and we naturally use language to express ourselves, therefore this natural expression should govern music. Would this not work in pedagogy, if we realize that people have a natural rhythm to words, and exploit this? As a step beyond saying "banana banana banana" for 9/8 compound time can we not feel the rhythm of language within the "phrase" of music? Conversely, music of certain periods were written in imitation of the vocal endeavour, and if we can "feel the hidden words" then the rhythms should be more easily felt and played.

It's interesting that centuries before, the Roman Quintilian tried to borrow from music and apply it to language. He looked at pitch and rhythm in music and wanted to apply it to oration as a means of moving the audience. 1500 years later Europe looked at Quintilian and others, and tried to bring oration into music. :p

Would that example come from the earlier Renaissance period? The Second Principle came as a reaction to the First Principle, where music was the mistress of the word, leading to rhythms that were unnatural to words.

I am not even going that far in this thread, however. The people of that era came upon the thought that there is a natural rhythm of speech, and that if it is exploited in music, the music will be more effective and it will be expressed more effectively by the musician. Pedagogically, if language is natural to us and rhythm resides in language then if we look to the phrases and rhythms where they reside, or build a greater awareness of our own rhythms, this should help us play music more expressively as well as less artificial-mechanically. We would be tapping into our own natural resources, as opposed to fighting ourselves, or imposing things upon ourselves artificially.

I've always used pea-nut but-ter even with adults.

"For what it's worth I have come to the opinion that I actually think that playing to a metronome is a higher skill than playing on one's own."



If you aren't used to it, it can be really tough. It seems like the little bugger is speeding up and slowing down all by itself.

Keyboardklutz, why not have your students say
"trip-uh-let trip-uh-let" instead of "1 & a" for the triplets.

When you get to 64th notes you could resort to
Rubber Baby Buggy Bumpers