Reading Music: Counting, or "feeling" the rhythm?

[OldSchoolFlats]

For you folks that read well, do you find yourself always counting (1e+a...), or do you more "feel" the rhythms, having seen them so many times?

I've read music on/off (mostly off) for over 40 years, but my internal "clock" only sub-divides by eight-notes. I don't "count" generally, except for the lead-in. I just know where the beat is, and play the eights and quarters, but even ties throw me sometimes.

As you can imagine, other than maybe a group of 4 sixteenths starting on the beat, I quickly get lost reading anything more than simple eighths and quarters.

While this is glaringly obvious as I read, I now see how this also affects my playing by ear. I can FOLLOW rhythmic patterns well when I hear them (e.g. drummer), and build in them, but I can't LEAD complex rhythms very well.

Note: Please don't laugh loud enough for me to hear in the DC area...

 

[wazzel]

If I am reading music I count. I played sax in band in high school, have done adult community bands and played in a big/swing band. Got to count in those settings to stay with the group.

 

[brianrost]

I'll count when I'm learning a chart and the rhythm is complex enough, as in funk or odd time sigs. After working through it slowly to hear it, I play it by feel.

If I have to sightread it cold and it's very syncopated, I'm screwed

 

[Malcolm35]

Dirt simple blues I'd probably count. Rest of the time I sing along with the vocalist -- under my breath. Most of the time the beat follows the lyric syllable, I.e, a two syllable lyric word get two beats, etc. Came over from rhythm guitar and this is what I used for the strum pattern.

Or I'm locked with the drummer's kick.

 

[mambo4]

I guess “feel” in the context of your question, but It’s not really “feeling” rhythms (any more than you “feel” The words I am writing) so much as knowing precisely what the rhythm is.

and for complex or unfamiliar rhythms some counting is always in order.

 

[BrotherMister]

Both-ish. When it comes to a sight reading job then usually I’m just going off the downbeats. I will count passages if I can see if it’s a complicated rhythm, usually just 8th’s is all I’ll need. If it’s a super slow tempo then the more subdivisions I’ve got going on the more the tempo is locked.

 

[dreamadream99]

Neither. My answer would be knowing. In the beginning I did plenty of counting and subdividing.But after reading complex rhythms for more than 40 years, I just know them by sight now. The same way you know words by sight.

 

[SLO Surfer]

Both.

For reading; count until you start to recognize rhythms and patterns, then you can start to feel them or read them without counting in your head.

 

[MrVentures]

As someone new to sight reading, I had a similar question. I’m currently working through Bellson’s Modern Reading Text in 4/4 to improve my rhythm.

Is it advised to count aloud, or is in your head comparable? I am starting slowly and doing the math (i.e., writing out the counts) above the notes to better understand how all they all work together, but am finding counting aloud to be challenging while also playing the rhythm. If aloud is the way to go, I’ll work through the challenge, but was curious what experienced people recommend.

 

[Resonance129]

The short answer (for me) is both.

When sight reading or learning tricky passages, I definitely find it helpful to count the beats out as I'm playing. It helps with determining note length on the fly. Once the music is under my fingers a bit, the need to count evaporates, and I'm more focused on feeling the passages out and applying accents, dynamics, etc.

 

[WrapRough]

As someone new to sight reading, I had a similar question. I’m currently working through Bellson’s Modern Reading Text in 4/4 to improve my rhythm.

Is it advised to count aloud, or is in your head comparable? I am starting slowly and doing the math (i.e., writing out the counts) above the notes to better understand how all they all work together, but am finding counting aloud to be challenging while also playing the rhythm. If aloud is the way to go, I’ll work through the challenge, but was curious what experienced people recommend.

I'm learning too, and my teacher recently made me count out loud rather than just foot tap or count in my head. And yeah it made a huge difference for me. So I'd say counting out loud is the way to go dude. Definitely a bit harder but I'm still on quarter notes, so it's doable at a reasonable tempo for me

 

[SteveCS]

I guess “feel” in the context of your question, but It’s not really “feeling” rhythms (any more than you “feel” The words I am writing) so much as knowing precisely what the rhythm is.

and for complex or unfamiliar rhythms some counting is always in order.

Neither. My answer would be knowing. In the beginning I did plenty of counting and subdividing.But after reading complex rhythms for more than 40 years, I just know them by sight now. The same way you know words by sight.

This. In the longer term it is about instant recognition of rhythmic groupings and figures, in the same way as words are recognised and 'read' as complete whole words or even groups of words, not reconstructed every time from individual syllables or letters.

 

[glocke1]

For you folks that read well, do you find yourself always counting (1e+a...), or do you more "feel" the rhythms, having seen them so many times?

I've read music on/off (mostly off) for over 40 years, but my internal "clock" only sub-divides by eight-notes. I don't "count" generally, except for the lead-in. I just know where the beat is, and play the eights and quarters, but even ties throw me sometimes.

As you can imagine, other than maybe a group of 4 sixteenths starting on the beat, I quickly get lost reading anything more than simple eighths and quarters.

While this is glaringly obvious as I read, I now see how this also affects my playing by ear. I can FOLLOW rhythmic patterns well when I hear them (e.g. drummer), and build in them, but I can't LEAD complex rhythms very well.

Note: Please don't laugh loud enough for me to hear in the DC area...

I'm probably an intermediate reader.

If I am having trouble with a rhythm or phrase, I'll count it at first just to get it straight in my head. Eventually I'll just end up feeling it.

 

[two fingers]

For you folks that read well, do you find yourself always counting (1e+a...), or do you more "feel" the rhythms, having seen them so many times?

I've read music on/off (mostly off) for over 40 years, but my internal "clock" only sub-divides by eight-notes. I don't "count" generally, except for the lead-in. I just know where the beat is, and play the eights and quarters, but even ties throw me sometimes.

As you can imagine, other than maybe a group of 4 sixteenths starting on the beat, I quickly get lost reading anything more than simple eighths and quarters.

While this is glaringly obvious as I read, I now see how this also affects my playing by ear. I can FOLLOW rhythmic patterns well when I hear them (e.g. drummer), and build in them, but I can't LEAD complex rhythms very well.

Note: Please don't laugh loud enough for me to hear in the DC area...

You're fine. Nothing is broken.

It just takes practice.

One thing that helps me is reading trombone music. It isn't written for bass so it's pretty challenging. Get an Arban's book for Trombone. That'll keep you busy for months. Some Rhythm Etudes books would work too.

 

[Ekulati]

You learn over time to recognize patterns, and have an internal sense of how they fit over a span of beats, bars, whatever. Counting them should only be done in the learning stages, then you file it away as "got that one" and never count it again. But it's also a skill, like speaking a foreign language, that will ebb and flow according to how much you're doing it. So you may have to re-learn patterns. But no, the counting will slow you down. My opinion/experience.

 

[Ostie]

I don’t count, other than the initial count off. But Im aware of the time signature.

I also play mandolin, and a lot of bluegrass tunes are in 3/4 time. Sometimes at bluegrass jams I have to stop and remind some people that we’re not playing in 4/4 time.

One fellow doesn’t understand the count off at all. He thinks it’s like “1….2…3….go!” So that everyone starts at the same time….

 

[bfields]

I'll join the chorus of "both". Yes, the goal's to be able to just recognize things on sight, but the way you get there is by being slow and methodical and counting.

For 16th note groupings specifically, there are a limited number of possibilities and you just memorize them all eventually. The Ed Friedland/Hal Leonard bass method, for example, works through them all and gives them different names and has some good progressive reading practice for 16ths. There are also systems like takadimi that some people use. As a kid I was just taught the usual 1-e-and-a-2-e-and-a....

Definitely doable--don't think it's hopeless--and worth doing, however you go about it!

 

[OptimalOptimus]

At first I did feel it and soon discovered that i was way off once the metronome entered my life.

 

[MarkA]

For me, the more ways that/levels on which I can feel and understand something, the better. Maintaining a solid sense of pulse and understanding *how* the rhythm you're reading (or leading, or improvising) relates to the pulse is important, whether you're explicitly counting it out or not.

Counting out rhythms is a powerful tool toward that end. You can also work on playing the rhythm while counting just the pulse ("1 2 3 4" in a typical 4/4 tune). Sometimes that's harder than counting the complex rhythm straight up (though you should be able to do that too). You can clap the pulse and count the rhythm or count the pulse and clap the rhythm or count subdivisions... they all work your rhythm muscles in different ways.

This all assumes that you understand the rhythms (again, with relation to the pulse of the music). Here, I think the parallels with reading at the letter, syllable, word, and phrase levels hold and are useful in conceptualizing your approach (this applies to playing, too, even when improvising).

There are visual cues, too, in the way music is written (if it's well-notated) and notes are beamed together that can help your eye quickly parse things into beat groupings (similarly to how the spaces between words and punctuation help with reading). N otever yonead herestog oodpr acticehe rethough, so it helps to understand rhythms well enough to count/play them even when they're notated kinda funky.

You might find it helpful to notate a few rhythms you find tricky on a grid/"rhythm ruler" (I believe Victor Wooten talks about something similar) and write the rhythm down (spaced out proportionally with the note durations) with the counting. This can help you visualize how everything relates to the beat/pulse (then practice counting, clapping, and playing it in different ways).

None of the above necessarily equates to having a solid feel, but it's easier to develop a solid feel when you're not tripping over (or wasting a lot of processing power deciphering) different rhythms.

 

[MultiScaleMale]

I guess I do a combination of both but it depends if I know the song or not. Early on I’ll read more scientifically and then it’s more of using the chart more of a reminder than anything.