Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Piano Teachers Forum We Have to Teach These Kids to COUNT BEATS!!!!!!

Nahum,
Thanks for the link to that resource. I've been looking for a source of varied rhythms to work on. What always throws me sightreading are the syncopated patterns that I haven't seen and worked on. Most of my musical experience is not jazz so I haven't played these the thousands of times that I have more conventional ones.

For example, here is me playing lead trombone on a stock piece of the amateur wind band repertoire, Rolling Thunder:
https://app.box.com/s/0ikjt7m6c7jarf0a4bdzepfy42dp3rm0

There is absolutely nothing unexpected about those rhythms and I would never make an error sightreading. It's when we get into ones I haven't practiced (this band doesn't/can't go there, but I play with others that do) that I find things to work on.

Couple of comments though:
Speed makes a difference. You notated my example correctly but we played it fast, in cut time.
Secondly, in American music those patterns would be swung, meaning the eighth notes would not be even; they end up being roughly 1.5/1 ratios, including when they're tied to longer notes, and quarter notes will normally be staccato while eighths will be legato or slurred. Your guitar book mentions swung rhythms around example 40 but doesn't really explain them.

TIMR ,I'm to the same extent professional classical musician , in the past worked as violist - concertmaster in symphony orchestra and chamber ensembles; as well as a jazz musician, teacher and methodologist.So I know very well the difference between swing feel and sense of rhythm in classical music.However, after 8 years of experience in conducting the course of rhythm sense development in Academy, I met with the typical phenomena rhythmic interaction in a group average of 15 students. It made me apply to a variety of sources: the psycho - physiological studies, art of acting in the theater, works of Dalcroze, musical materials to work on reading rhythm of Louis Bellson, Roni Holan , William Leawitt ,connakol , works of Bob Stoloff on scat singing and body drumming , african dances and rhythms . Maybe you know that African musicians do not consider non-using and metronome; and yet they have rhythm in order.Maybe you know that African musicians do not counting and do not use a metronome; and yet they have rhythm in order.This should bring food for thought, is not it?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1_AFJ7NPcEA

http://www.mediafire.com/listen/4gqjaxbdaz5b7nf/I_have_a_dream_Blues.mp3

I'm fairly new to Piano World but I wanted to interject a couple of things.

First, by teaching words like "quarter, half-note" and "ta, ti-ti", you are giving students an aural and vocal learning medium for the visual one on the page. Yes, four year olds can count to four but a lot of them probably don't understand the finer principle of making "1, 2, 3, 4" last for a given amount of time (aka, tempo) let alone the challenge of division, even if it's not in music. Then you start to throw in the concept that we don't always count to four (3/4 or 6/8 or other time signatures) and watch out! I also know an excellent teacher who taught high school music for probably 30 years and switched from the traditional counting to the quarter/half note style. I guess students just weren't geting it.

And the second thing I want to add is my own experience. I started playing piano when I was about five. I had three different teachers growing up (my mom was one). I learned other instruments and had different teachers for each of them plus band directors. I really liked math and definitely knew how to count and divide. In other words, I was not lacking on excellent teachers. However, It wasn't until about my sophomore year of high school that I figured out how to count - from my dad, who played trumpet some in high school but was very mathematically minded. However he explained it takes me made everything click. Ten years of grilling and I finally understood! Once I figured out how to count I could subdivide and can now count better than my mom. How did I get by playing pieces? I guessed! I knew that I had to fit so many notes in a certain time (a measure) and I knew I needed to be at x-note by the time my mom clapped. I knew some notes had to be "closer or farther" away from others. If I got the "middle notes" played in between I was golden! And the other way I got by - I had my mom play the piece and then I could just mimic her without actually counting. Now I play very few pieces for students because I want a) them to learn how to read the music on their own; and b) know where we're really standing as far as being able to read the notes and count (and yes - I guessed on notes and names, too!). It's because of my own "back door system" I perfected that is know to look for it.

Teaching it? That's different. You never know what concept will make it click. Or when.

Good luck! I'm sure hat however you teach them they will have fun and learn!

Jen

Most 4-year-olds can count by rote; many are still learning to count with 1 to 1 correspondence.

Having taught a lot of very young beginners, I wouldn't even consider teaching 4-6 year olds to interpret rhythms with numbers.

Another possible way to look at that is that you played well for ten years on several instruments without that type of counting. IOW, the counting may not be a necessary skill for what you are doing. You learned to play rhythms first, then to count, rather than the other way around. Maybe everybody does.

Exactly. Rhythm is something you viscerally experience first. Over-stressing, the intellectual component first is one of the biggest the pedagogical mistakes that can be made. And unlike the reading/ear training debate (which is a bit more complex and requires a more nuanced and balanced approach), rhythmic notation isn't that hard to explain or teach later.

In the process of rhythmic education of students in the first place they should be able to play pulse of rhythm, and counting - later.Just as student in the study of elementary theory remembers and recognizes individual pitches, intervals and chords, he is obliged to enrich themselves not only the knowledge of rhythmic units, but also rhythmic patterns - not on the basis of counting, but prosody, first out loud.
Experience shows that the inner rhythmic prosody is created BEFORE the playing
on instrument; and rhythmic mistakes lurk already there. Therefore sounding rhythmic patterns on melodica even before the piano allows on time   detect those mistakes and correct them, without investing any technical work of fingers. Thus , the largest share of work on rhythm occurs before the fingers touch the keyboard .
As we know - a hunter feeds the dogs not only before the hunt ; and the student must previously have in his stock rhythmic patterns according to genre , otherwise obtained as in this lesson:

https://www.mediafire.com/folder/dgau9vmd9kjyq/Rhythm_lesson

And yet the goal is achieved, but where here the place for counting?

If you don't think counting should be a part of
learning to read music, they why not get rid of the
time signatures?!? Those are numbers too!

4/4 time, 3/4 time, 2/4 time!

All numbers to count!

Don't underestimate children. They can count.

This is why musical education has been shown to
improve student's math abilities!

No one said to get rid of counting/verbalization or time signatures.

What's is denied is that counting explicitly means having a good sense of rhythm rhythm, which it does not. There's plenty of struggling students who can count til their faces are blue with the metronome, and still not have a rhythmic sense.

And that is because counting and the like are surrogates measures of something that is more fundamental.

You are entitled to your opinion, but I disagree.

The beat is the soul of ALL music.

And if you want to read music, it helps to count
the beats.

Later on, you can drop the counting, because you know
what the patterns sound like, but the beginner
must start from the fundamentals.

I teach my kids to count beats, and it helps them.

Again, no one is denying the beat. Nothing in the past discussion even begins to imply that.

What people are denying is that counting is the best way to represent the beat in all situations.

I had the same opinion as you, until I started directing a handbell choir and assisting with a vocal choir.

But it didn't seem to work the way I expected.

Then I thought back to my own experiences, and realized that I read music pretty well long before I knew to assign letter names to notes, and played rhythms correctly before I knew how to count them.

Similarly, I assumed learning to read involved knowing the sounds of the letters, and sounding out words - until I had kids of my own, who learned to read fluently without going through that step.

I've concluded there is more than one way to get the end we desire, and frequently it is not the way I thought it was.

I do think pulse is important and is close to impossible without incorporating some body motion. I have more than most, I dance in place while playing or singing, but all good performers I know make at least small scale motions with the body.

When we see a dotted quarter eighth pattern, do we count it, or just play it? I haven't counted it in maybe 40 years. I can count itj, but does that really help? I do not pretend to know.

This week at bell rehearsal we had a pattern where the upper line was playing a dotted quarter eighth against two quarters in the lower. You could hear those notes lock in time against each other. That didn't happen overnight, it took me a while to get them to A) play each pattern correctly in isolation and B) listen and match the other line. And while I started by counting, I'm not sure that's what really worked.

Perhaps this is possible? Perhaps counting a rhythm out loud, slowly, helps us play it correctly but does not teach it?

You are confusing the beat with the rhythm, they are not the same thing.

Well, like I said, I don't really count beats
anymore either. Unless I find a really tricky passage
that I don't have a recording of, then it does help.

But I see your point. People learn to read without
necessarily thinking about each letter.

However, it DOES help to learn the Alphabet when you
are very young!

In one of the ensembles I play with, there is a quite accomplished player with one rhythm problem. He has trouble knowing where to put an afterbeat. Unfortunately his instrument's parts frequently require these. He does know how to count, he knows how that rhythm should be played, but during a piece he anticipates or lags where they should be.

Occasionally my part ovelaps his, and when he hears this he matches me.

I bring this up because with my handbell group placing afterbeats (the "and" of a beat) is the most significant problem. (no music background required, no audition, just join and Tim takes care of the rest)

I know you are new to teaching, so obviously you haven't run into some major hurdles of teaching, such as getting students who can't hold a steady beat and students who can't make any mental/physical correlation between counting numbers and actual beats in the music. If there's such a thing as "tone deaf" children, then there is also such a thing as "rhythmically challenged" children.

Soon, you'll realize that counting beats is not for everyone, and there will be challenges that you can't resolve no matter what strategy you try--that is, if you are willing to try any alternative strategies at all.

Ok, your point is well taken.

And I DO tell students to listen to the music
on Youtube, while reading the music, to better
understand how to interpret it. That's certainly
not counting beats.

I've had enough students already to know that
I can't teach in a one-size-fits-all style!

But funny, isn't that how MOST teaching is done with
a class? They don't have time to tailor a group
class to everyone.

But yes, one on one private lessons should be different.

Ok, thanks everyone, for the input!

I do not deny the role of counting in music ( exactly the same as using of metronome ), but again we need to understand - what   it can give to us (to students) , and what cannot.
Counting lays before us the rhythmic map of what is happening inside each bar, as well as in musical constructions: motif, phrase, sentence, period. It's like the coordinates on the geographical map; and it is equally important to play music on the notes. This way the pupil determines the location of the notes within the bar: But there are limitations. If you count the beats, the rhythmic map will look like this:


However, if you use the detailed subdivision of rhythm; it will look like this:



Now give the student the notes of his favorite songs, say Beyoncé - Partition https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ12_E5R3qc
; he began to learn the melody with the with the counting that includes the 16- s. You can forget about the rhythm - it just will not but will be a continuous counting of "one-and-and-and two-and-and- and"   and attempts to coordinate with him finger movements. Spirit of the law about counting of rhythm observed, but the melody is safely dead; can be a disciple also throw the notes and will be playing by ear or leave the song .
This is precisely the reason for occurrence of rhythm pedagogy!

Instead of counting I'm offering to split into components - the study of pulse of music, rhythm, rhythmic patterns in accordance with the pulse, and then rejoin them to the chain. Without a counting ...

There is a difference in counting note values and measures.
Qtr Qtr Half-note or
1 1 1-2 or
ta ta ta-aa
is easier to follow than
1 2 3 4.

And yes, then adding 3/4 or 2/4 time? Yikes! Rhythm must be felt.

I learned Duckworth from my college pedagogy professor. We tap and clap and march. Some kids just get it, while some kids....struggle.
I have siblings, and the younger sister loved waltzing with me, while the older brother was two left feet and a clod. (this was for a minuet) I "sang" the piece as we waltzed.

I had another student who jsut banged away any which a way. I circled only the first beat of each measure, and had him play only what was circled. It took a bit of work, but then he nailed it!

No student is the same. For some, I say "two 8's two 8's" and others I will say a silly word. Some get the 'boring' "one then two then." (I switched from
one AND to
One THEN
after reading somewhere that "then" is easier to say and pushes along the rhythm better than the word "and". And, it seems to work!

Sometimes we tap or clap, no melody involved. Less stress that way, taking away the melody.

I also do a fair bit of sight reading, and improv.

I learned straight counting myself, back in the day, and I understand so much better after learning other ways. Like, in math class all my life, while I could usually do it, I did not really understand it. Then I took an education class in college on how to teach math, and I wound up teaching myself!

Beginning students start with "this is a quarter note. It is the heartbeat of music. Whether fast like when running, or slow like when sleeping, it keeps on going steady."

And then we march round the room and clap on each step. (this involves crossing midline when the clapping alternates RH then LH on top, and clapping side to side,not just in front of your belly button. Also involves large motor skills. Great educational development!)

By time 8th notes are introduced, I have a Music Pizza to show them, and they also draw on it, with subdivided slices for note values, and we clap out chords with a metronome. It is a fun challenge.

Anyway, yes, counting works. But there is SO much more than just "boring" counting that a teacher brings to the bench.

Adapt. Move around! Sing! Use accents (whether < or a spoken differnt language for emphasis) and, ask the students to speak out loud what they are doing, and listen to what they are saying. Do they understand?

Have fun, and whatever you think works and is carved in stone, may actually change with your very next student. Each lesson is a new experience, and no two are ever alike!!

btw- Nahum-- that is a great visual example!
Thanks for sharing it, and thus teaching me!