Pianists often think of musical rhythm as a chore, or something they’re not good at. I managed to fake my way through years of piano lessons without my teacher’s ever realizing that I was simply imitating her playing, playing according to how the notes lined up on the page, or guessing. Freshman musicianship and Hindemith’s Elementary Training for Musicians put an end to the guesswork.
Everyone who has a pulse has a sense of rhythm, but at some point an aspiring pianist needs to figure out the code. Simply reading the ups and downs of a melody is simplicity itself, but the way rhythms are written hardly ever indicates how long the notes and rests last. Besides, musical rhythm is physical, not mental.
The good news is that once you memorize the symbols, whole, half, quarter, eighth and sixteenth notes and rests, you do begin to see the beats march across the page and do not have to count all the time.
You can practice rhythm anywhere, walking, tapping, analyzing. When you hear music, try to figure whether it is organized in measures of two, three, four, or something else. Taking your own pulse, count aloud in groups of three and then four. The pulse does not have an accented beat the way music does.
Drumming is a good way to separate musical rhythm from melody and harmony so that you can concentrate on the rhythm. It’s also lots of fun. I have sometimes been impressed into service in the Coastside Community Orchestra’s percussion section and have had to have telephone lessons from my drummer son, Nonda.
Whacking the daylights out of a bass drum is strangely satisfying, with the reverberations traveling up your arm and throughout your body.
(Percussion instruments made by Nonda: pandero, guero, rain stick.)
