Or do you encourage them to do so? Will counting with the right foot while playing the piano interfere with using the pedal when needed?

A related question: when playing the piano, should the student count aloud while listening to the metronome? Would it be redundant?

Thank you!

Can you tell me more about the experience under which this question arises?

If giving the student's profile, how would you explain this student's musical skills and repertoire at this time?

Can the student not keep a steady beat?

Thanks for asking, Betty!

This is about a 6-year old beginning student, who likes to tap with his right foot while playing.

Sound okay if he's just practicing. Definitely not okay if he's performing on stage.

I would never encourage any student to tap a foot while playing the piano. Usually I'd try to stop it as soon as possible.

I expect people to count well before the begin using a metronome. Until people are able to count very evenly, usually trying to play with a metronome is either very difficult and frustrating or something that does not work.

If someone *is* using a metronome, I would only have them count if the rhythm is wrong.

100% agree. I personally couldn't sightread without it. In performance a definite no no. All my students are expected to. Never use a metronome.

I tap a toe when sightreading something rhythmically difficult.

...but I'm never consciously aware I do it.

Neither am I, most of the time.

When I sight read something rhythmically difficult, my entire body is bobbing up and down in an attempt to keep a steady pulse. I think I got that from my professor, who's really good with rhythm and "placement of beats."

I faked my way with rhythm through high school, and I had to re-learn rhythm in college. I guess Asians just aren't born with that internal beat. Some of my non-Asian students naturally "get it" when it comes to rhythm.

I don't think the fact that you externalise the rhythm means that you don't have an internal sense of beat. (if that's what you were saying - perhaps you weren't )

My guess is that students who have difficulty with time don't have that 'inner dancing' where everything about your body is responding to the music - all the motor neuron circuits are firing just short of movement. I think it is what Schultz is trying to write about in his massive tome The Theory of Consciousness.

I don't do anything about it for a 6 year old, simply because at that time in their progress they aren't ready to count out loud while playing. once they are, they generally stop the body movement.

I've been thinking about this question and my concern would be that the tapping of the foot would be too much grounding and would act as an interruption to the music that should be moving connectedly to the next note. The student could also focus too much on the foot's upstroks which would feel like detachment between notes. Tapping the foot for counting is very different from pedaling movement.

It also would have a tendancy to produce a wooden sound because the foot tapping would replace the breathing cycle and the messages from the emotions (even at 6).

Would this not produce a woodpecking sound on the keys because the right foot tapping has become the focus of effort?

Hum. It all could be avoided by asking him to keep his feet on the floor unmoving. Doesn't he need two feel ON the floor for support and balance on the bench?

And anything practiced is going to appear in performance isn't it?

What does the original poster lean toward doing about it?

Betty

Just to say Betty, there are cultures who do not have a separate name for dance and music. I'm sure when music's around their feet aren't on the ground.

MA wrote: I begin teaching students where to place their feet with lesson #1, and then correct them there after if their feet drift away from the proper position.

There heels must be firmly on the floor, or else proper pedaling cannot be accomplished.

Unfortunately, even after years of careful training, some students can be led astray by band practice. It's a never ending chore.

John,

I also taught brass for many years. I did not encourage my brass students to tap either.

I teach the sustain pedal early, and I encourage all students to explore the soft pedal or una corda. Once both feet are busy pedaling, they can no longer tap.

Even band/orchestra students, by the way, are taught to tap their big toe inside the shoe and make it invisible to people watching.