I'm sure we've all seen this: some students understand the concept of a beat the moment it's presented to them and struggle only minimally with the idea of half beats or even stranger rhythms. The mystical "beat" is in their bones, so to speak.

Other students seem to have no such sense. If they count out loud, they're counting 1 . . . 23 . . 4 . 1 . . 2 . 3 . . . 4. Now, some of these students I've had success with. Thinking outside the box in terms of beat seems to help: saying "strawberry strawberry strawberry" for triplets, for instance, or saying "Deck the halls" in their heads for dotted quarter followed by sixteenth followed by whatever.

But I've had a couple who just can't get it. They'll play a rhythm wrong even if I play it and tell them to copy what I played. I swear they can't hear the difference. If we fix that particular rhythm, they'll struggle with the next one. Playing with a metronome doesn't help because they just play against the metronome. One such is especially frustrating because she's a great reader, she has decent dexterity, she can play with feeling, and she can memorize like nobody's business. Her lack of a feel for rhythm is holding her back. Even my nonmusical husband expresses surprise after her lessons that she can't hear what's wrong.

Any advice for how to help kids understand this strange concept of organizing time into beats, which are changeable based on the tempo of the song?

I have used a small shaker rattle, which looks like an egg filled with some stuff (probably beads or sand) purchased at a music store for a small sum.

I have them shake it to the beat as I play the song (a simple one) that they are working with, usually Old MacDonald, or something they already knew before taking lessons.

I have them shake it by tapping their thigh with the hand holding the egg, as they sit.

Do this for a short while as you count and play. Then have the student count as you continue, then have them do it with each hand separately.

This has worked very well with some students.

I get them up on their feet. Walking on the spot. 1 2 3 4 etc combining that with clapping hands.
I find that getting the beat into the body helps.

I think the above are good suggestions and I think that patience applies to the teacher because it takes longer to feel rhythm for some students. Who knows it might be a hearing issue?

rada

I do too. i find i have to walk around the yard for 3/4 time. - which is fun.

It is usually a body movement thing, which is why clapping, walking, dancing, shaking a rattle to the beat all incorporate body movements with the beat.

Also, many people suggest drum lessons as a very helpful addition to playing other instruments.

And this is hitting the nail on the head. If they can't hear it, they won't be able to produce a fully reliable body response. All the clapping or marching in the world won't help because imitating clapping or marching to music involves hearing it first.

I find that students who have this problem have to work it through intellectually first. Do the math. Then have them verbalize something like a clock, even to the point of counting one one thousand, two one thousand, or tick tick tick tick (8th notes can then become tick-tock). Familiar things like using their name (MAry MAry) are effective. From there, you can add a physical response.

At the point, some students respond to an electronic program (there used to be one called Tap It, but I don't know if that still exists).

The basic rule I follow is start with the familiar, work towards the unfamiliar.

I like to have students listen to their heartbeat with a stethoscope (they're pretty cheap) and tap along with it. The downside is that only they can hear it, but I figure if they're tapping steadily they must be getting the point. They never seem to get tired of it either, which is a plus. I also have maracas, eggs, and a snare. These work fairly well for me, but it is always a slow process.

Almost any idea works with some students (a few), and it often feels that nothing in the world works with the "rhythm-challenged".

But I do think anyone can improve, and helping people improve mostly takes a ton of patience and a lot of experimentation.

This does seem like the message of all of you kind people who have responded. Okay, I will continue to experiment and be patient and work on rhythm. It seems like this student is dedicated enough to piano to keep working on it, and if she is, then so am I.

(Why oh why is jazz her favorite genre? She couldn't pick harder music to count if she tried.)

I would start with a song she knows already and see if she can clap to the beat. Can she clap Quarter notes and does she recognize the natural accent on the 1 beat. If she can do that then see if she can recognize what time signature she is in. Try a bunch of songs she knows, you can ask her to bring in her iPod. Once she can recognize that you can start adding in other simple rhythms you can hear other instruments playing, see if she can recreate those. You can start showing her what the rhythms look like on paper.

At the same time, what kind of rhythms can she play with a metronome. Do rhythms but do not do notes. In other words write out examples with just rhythms and the notes don't change. Make examples of things she can do so she gets confident. Then start introducing one rhythm that she does not know. For instance if she is having problems with eighth notes make her count out loud first...1 & 2 & and so on. When she can count it great, make the metronome click on those beats, the metronome should be clicking 8 times in a measure. When she can get that make the metronome faster till you get to 144 and she has no problem with that switch it to 72 and the click is now only on the beat.

The bottom line is find something she can do and slowly add new rhythms. I say take out the notes because sometimes students focus too much on notes and the rhythm becomes secondary.

I hope that helps

I think the best way to get them to hear it is to play with them, and then stop them and ask, can you tell we're not together? Repeat until they are able to listen and at least hear that there's something off. Then have them try to play with you. I encountered this with an adult student and she's gotten much better at steady beats, although it's still a work in progress.

Also, assign pieces that contain only one rhythmic value. All quarter notes, or all 8th notes, something like that. This will help them hear the evenness of each note. In this instance with my adult student, I selected Hanon and some intermediate pieces with running 8th notes. She would go home and learn the notes, usually pausing at each measure or play stepwise motion fast and skips or larger intervals slower. After playing this on her own, then I would play with her and usually by the end of the Hanon exercise she would be matching me.

I also would have her do the same thing with the metronome in the lesson and at home. It's important to understand that working with the metronome is a skill that takes time. Of course they won't be able to do it at first, because they have rhythm/beat problems!! I would explain to the student that whenever they hear that they are "off" from the metronome, to stop, count a measure of beats and then pick up where they left off, no matter how many times they have to stop and start. I also prepare them for the fact it won't be perfect, but they are training their ears to listen so it takes time, maybe even several weeks of it.

all this said.. it still is an important, difficult skill, this maintaining a steady reliable beat.

I still notice irregularities in my tempo and it's not just rubato.

I loved my augsberger-type former bass guitarist who himself WAS a metronome.

In my experience, I've found that rhythm is the most difficult thing to teach... but the most important. I still struggle with rhythm, and didn't really understand the significance of it until I was doing my masters in jazz. I think that most of us teachers, myself included, having been taught primarily from a classical approach we haven't learned rhythm properly ourselves. So of course, this makes it harder to teach to others. Our western music culture places the most significance on melody. We all grow up learning to sing and hum familiar tunes with the emphasis placed on getting the right pitches. But you rarely come across anyone who's early musical exposure was to rhythm, say... banging out a beat on the table with spoons at dinner, or sophisticated hand and body clapping (not patty-cake stuff), or even moreso, dance (like African dance, not ballet). But in African and Latin American cultures these types of things are more common. And those musical cultures are obviously very influential in jazz and modern pop music. European music prioritizes the melody so the beat is often stretched and compressed to accomodate the melodic significance. Whereas, in jazz and music that jazz has it's roots in, the beat is usually rock solid, subdivisions are always felt, and polyrhythmic concepts are the norm. Funny thing is though, that even in my graduate jazz studies, most of the course work focused on melodic and harmonic considerations and ear training, and I think this is pretty common in most programs. At any rate, I've made it my personal mission to pursue a better understanding of rhythm, to improve my sense of time, and hopefully to find better and better ways to teach it. Like anything else in music, it's a never ending process, but it's one I think that most of us could stand to look a little closer at.

This is a bit of a tangent, but Radiohead is one of my favorite bands to listen to. Apparently Thom Yorke doesn't read music, so all of the rhythms he comes up with are strictly by feel, and you can kind of tell. They'd be almost impossible to transcribe. The result is something that's fascinating and strange to listen to. Check out "Pyramid Song" and try to identify the key signature for one example. (Spoiler: It's 4/4.)

I feel a little jealous that because I am classically trained, I have probably lost some of my flexibility regarding rhythms. I probably will never invent rhythms that I haven't seen before or that I can't conceive of mathematically.

Not with that attitude, you won't .

To say that being classically trained means you cannot feel rhythms anymore I think is a great disservice to classical music. Perhaps you simply need to work at inventing rhythms to regain that skill. Try composing.

This is what I do:

1) I start with only quarter notes. We count those until they are even. Some people pick it up from day one, but they can't physically get to the keys in time, so the lack of steady rhythm is a physical problem. They hear it right. Most take a bit longer. Some take a LONG time.

2) I add halfs. So far I always write in the counts. (Actually, I have them printed in, because I am using my own music.)

3) I introduce eighth notes, always using 1 and 2 and, etc. I use "+" for ands. The counting is still written in. I make students say ALL ands, even when there are only quarter notes.

4) I allow the students who have absorbed the rhythm to leave out "and" when there are no eight notes. Example 1 2 3+ 4.

Eventually, no matter what system I use, SOME rhythm is going to throw students, and working through that is where patience and inventiveness comes in.

Yes, but we have to remember that most people have a severely limited definition of "classical music".

Where does it start? Medieval? Renaissance? Baroque?

Where does it end? Before or after Debussy? How about Stravinsky, Bartok, Ives, Shoenberg? Bernstein? Penderecki? And what about music that has already been around 50 years, or more, and is still played as it was written? Where does Gershwin fit in? Stephen Sondheim?

I'm making this point, not for you, but to point out that to our students "classical music" is incredibly limited, and for them, using what they think of as "classical" they will conclude that rhythm in "that music" is simpler, because it is.

All I can say is I feel your pain. I just have one boy, who I've had for 4 years, who continually vexes me. I've tried everything I can think of. The only thing that works for him is counting out loud. When he does it, he gets it perfectly. But it's a power struggle to get him to do it, with a little attitude thrown in on top.

Pulsing the hands helps (though I don't like to overdo it), saying words to the rhythm helps. I don't find that walking in time helps, because they don't walk in time. Play the left while they play the right, on and on. Everything probably helps a little, nothing helps completely. In the end, it's hard to know what worked, what didn't!

I've had that happen too.

By the way, I hardly move when I play. I feel no need to express rhythm with my body. For as long as I can remember I've had the ability to keep very accurate time, by myself, and in groups. Accompanying has always been very easy for me because I can effortlessly adapt to players who vary rhythms, either on purpose, or in error.

I struggled for over a year with one student who could would count a fraction of a second before or after pressing each key. He could not hear it when *I* counted out of sync with my fingers, and I'm talking about a fairly big gap.

So I gave up, accepted that it would never happen, and a year later his counts were in sync with his fingers.

That is what is so weird. We never know *if* things will happen, for sure, and we also don't know *when*...