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Rhythm
Oct 24, 2006 14:54:21 GMT
Post by possom on Oct 24, 2006 14:54:21 GMT
The one that works great with beginners for me is tea coffee tea for crotchet and coffee for 2 quavers. I love the Bob the Builder thingy and think i'll use that In reply to Steve about imitation, I never counted a thing until around grade 8, looking back i've realised that if I heard how a piece sounded and then looked at the music I would automatically relate how the dots on the page matched up to the rhythm in my head (I think!), it wasn't until I thought about teaching that I actually learnt how to count out rhythms for rhythm sake.
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Rhythm
Oct 24, 2006 16:41:16 GMT
Post by anacrusis on Oct 24, 2006 16:41:16 GMT
So are you saying that if we continue to work hard enough at this we'll get there in the end? I have yet to meet one who does not. It takes some people a while, that's all. ;D Heh, heh, it took me forever, and I'm still making my way through the problem! Couldn't count at all until my kids' piano teacher taught them ta-te and all that (didn't go on to do all the singing semaphore though) - then learned how to count enough to help the kids to get the basics of rhythm. Still have to tap a foot madly when the going gets tough, divide the beat into halves at least and rely very heavily on knowing how the music is likely to go. Got well and truly wrong-footed playing trios last night, because the two recorders were playing off the beat together, rather than staggering about alternately. And they let me have a diploma.... ;D *wonders if she ought to complain about not having a certificate yet when the exam was in June...*
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Rhythm
Oct 24, 2006 18:16:26 GMT
Post by chocolatedog on Oct 24, 2006 18:16:26 GMT
I use tea, coffee, cocacola for crotchets, quavers, semiquavers, then lemonade, strawberry, whisky for quaver/semiquaver combinations, and pineapple for triplets. I like the Bob the Builder though, as I haven't yet found anything really satisfactory for a dotted crotchet/quaver rhythm. For complex syncopated rhythms with crotchets/quavers/tied notes I use whole phrases like "yellow bottle of gin" "winnie the pooh" "tie me kangaroo down" etc. I find pupils get the feel of the rhythm better using words.........where possible I also try to use 'normal' counting, but find I seem to get better results, at least early on, with the words method.
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Rhythm
Oct 24, 2006 19:00:52 GMT
Post by kerioboe on Oct 24, 2006 19:00:52 GMT
Just bringing in a little negativity here! where do you go when they just don't have a basic sense of pulse? Does anyone else agree that this "phenomenon" does actually exist? Yes, me, and it is not a phenomenon. Human brains develop unevenly and at different speeds when compared to those of other humans. It is a developmental thing and is perfectly normal. There is the wonderful experience all we teachers have. One week a rhythmically clueless student leaves their lesson. The following week, the very same student has a brilliant understanding of rhythm. What happened in between? The student's brain made the required connections and ta-daa. Instant rhythm. Steve you have just described my elder daughter (the one who has started playing scales to fill up remaining practice time). She used to play everything (minims, crotchets, quavers whatever) the same length (or possibly slightly longer if the following note was a hard one but in any case with no relationship to what was actually written on the page). I was beginning to think that she would never grasp what rhythm was - she wasn't even particularly good at clapping back a rhythm. Then suddenly one day a couple of months ago it just clicked. She doesn't seem to be counting but everything is in rhythm and she is not at all put off by me accompanying her on the piano with a different rhythm. (Although she did say she wasn't listening to what I was playing ) As far as my own playing is concerned I have a far better sense of pulse on the piano than I do on the oboe. Sometimes with the oboe I feel as though I can't do two things at once; either I think about the fingering for the notes or I count but not both at the same time. This happens when I am playing things at the limit of my ability (and the pulse/rhythm problems do improve as I get my fingers round the notes). I don't know how much this is true of your pupils. My music reading ability is way above my oboe-playing ability whereas on a first instrument presumably the two are more closely linked.
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Rhythm
Oct 24, 2006 23:19:52 GMT
Post by Dulciana on Oct 24, 2006 23:19:52 GMT
What about when the pupil can play the pieces from memory (Grade 5) and never hits a wrong note, but when it's just a series of notes? No sense of rhythmic drive whatsoever, loses pulse in second bar. Yes, crotchets are longer than quavers, but otherwise bear no relation? (This is a pupil that I inherited (literally) at Grade 5.) He is quite determined that he's doing this exam (AB), nothing I can say will talk him out of it, and February is his last chance before the syllabus is defunct. He can do the ta-tee-ta bit, but the next series of notes will bear absolutely no relation to the ta-tee-ta. I've tried the lot! I know he should be nowhere near Grade 5 - not my doing - but given that he thinks he's Grade 5 and won't be persuaded otherwise - what the bloody place where satan lives am I going to do with him?
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Rhythm
Dec 1, 2006 21:09:07 GMT
Post by kerioboe on Dec 1, 2006 21:09:07 GMT
I just wanted to thank Nat for "Bob the Builder." My daughter has just got her first piece with a dotted crotchet in and she was getting really frustrated because she couldn't remember how her teacher had said to play it and she said I was explaining really badly. In desperation I sang "Bob the Builder" to it and she thought this was great. She made me sing the whole piece (I had to add a few other words in and he couldn't fix it) and by the end she was rolling round the floor laughing. She was laughing so much that she couldn't actually play it on the cello but she has been singing it all afternoon (driving her sister mad) and hopefully (now that she has well and truly internalised the rhythm) it will transfer to the cello in tomorrow's practice.
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