Teaching basic rhythm?

[Jack Clark]

Dear Mr. Seaton-

I've been around music and musicians nearly all my life and can read basic standard notation, although I don't sight read worth mentioning. I can read and play basic rhythms and have a good sense of time.

My question: How do you teach rhythm to someone who seems to have no sense of it?

I play in a very amateur just-for-fun group with a fellow retiree who listens to a lot of rock and bluegrass, but no sense of time has rubbed off on him. He can keep a fairly steady beat going once he begins playing, but he thinks and even speaks in terms of playing and "pausing"—he has no concept of a beat that continues on during rests or between sections of a tune. ("Oh, should I not pause there?") He'll start us off "1....2....1..2..3..4" (whether there are pickup notes or not and whether the tune is in 3/4 time or not) at about 70 bpm, then begin playing at 120. His solos are all on his own bpms, no matter what tempo we've been playing up to that point.

He's very cooperative and doesn't resist learning, but he just doesn't realize that he doesn't get it. He just doesn't seem to hear anything to get.

Can you recommend an approach here? A book? A CD or DVD? An exercise? Anything simple we can try?

[Lynn Seaton]

Hello,
In most types of popular music, jazz, bluegrass, and rock, keeping the pulse is essential! Often, it is a challenge to make rhythm a priority over "right notes". That is usually the core of the problem. One of the time-tested ways to get people to feel rhythm is to clap time with a metronome or recordings. Try getting together with your friend and some of their favorite recordings. Start the recording and clap time with it. You can pick some rhythms (start simple with just 1/2 notes and 1/4 notes) and have them copy what you do. Clap together. You can do this with a metronome too. You can also sing rhythms. This can develop into rhythmic call and response. Start with a simple one pitch short rhythm. Play it with a metronome and have your friend play it back with you. Start with rhythms that fit into a one or two bar phrase like C Jam Blues by Duke Ellington.
Another way is to step or march in tempo. Later on, you can add clapping to the stepping. For example: on a salsa tune, march in two and clap a clave rhythm 3-2 or 2-3.
I found a scholarly article on this that may interest you:
How to teach rhythm and Meter | KT Percussion Ensemble Sheet Music
I hope this helps.

[Andy Allen]

Peter Erskine's book "Time Awareness" is worth checking out in this regard. It's not directly aimed at beginners, but could be a good tool for a more experienced player to use when teaching.

Fuzzy Music: Time Awareness

Andy

[Jack Clark]

He can clap in time to music. The problem really is, I guess, that he loses the beat when the sound of notes being played stops. Like at the end of a verse, where there might be a dotted half note or a whole note, or a long rest. He thinks in terms of you play, then you "pause," then you play again. So he doesn't know when to start playing again.

He's got to do away with his "pauses" thoughts and realize that the beat continues on when notes aren't being played—and that quarter rests are as important as quarter notes. And he needs to get the idea of consistent measures as being essential to the beat. You never know when he'll pull a beat out of a measure, or insert an extra one.

Maybe if I just make up some sheets with just quarter notes and quarter rests to start . . . and try to get him to work through them with me, thinking of them more as using visual aids rather than as reading music notation. Reading music intimidates him, I think.

[Lynn Seaton]

I think you are on the right track with your idea of continuing music without pauses. Many people have word sounds for different rhythms. For example for triplets: "one and uh two and uh". Having other words can be even more fun.

Here is a quote from a website that mentions Michiko Yurko's book Music Mind Games:
"I’ve been teaching how to count rhythm to most of my students using Michiko Yurko’s genius method of naming note values with easy and fun to say words. I highly recommend her book Music Mind Games for all music teachers and home-schoolers and interested parents..
For example, a one beat (quarter note) is called BLUE.
Two eighth notes are called JELLO.
An eighth note triplet, where the three notes are played in one beat is PINEAPPLE.
And four sixteenth notes is HUCKLEBERRY.
This is so much more fun and easier to remember than when I was in school learning, “one -eee- and – ah.”"
That quote is from this website: How To Teach Rhythm to Beginning Music Students | Park Slope Music Lessons
Clark Terry wrote a book "Introduction of Sounds to Rhythmic Patterns" (out of print) that has wonderful vocalizations notated for many jazz phrases. One can hear those sounds when Clark would scat sing. The are notations of what various jazz phrases should/could sound like.