I know, I know, we all want to be able to sit down and play a piece of music for the first time effortlessly, don’t we? 

Well I often find that in the eagerness students feel to rush to the finish line, they are tempted to take short cuts along the way—shortcuts that only end up pushing the finish line farther away.  And one of the first items that gets thrown to the wayside (besides sightreading–don’t even get me started there!) is RHYTHM. 

Unless you grew up with musicians or are one of the few who just have rhythm in your blood, it may not come naturally.  You probably won’t automatically have an inner beat that you can sync all of your music notes to when you first get started.  It also may not be easy to understand how rhythm is broken down at first.  But don’t skip this part!  If you do you’ll just spend the rest of your piano career compensating for the lack of foundation.

Even though you may not understand rhythm as a performer in the beginning, you definitely already understand it as a listener–whether you know it or not.  When you listen to your favorite Killers hit, I’m sure you find yourself either bobbing your head or downright jumping up and down to the “pulse” of the music.  If this pulse didn’t happen at exactly the same time every time–like a heart beating or a clock ticking–it would be pretty hard to bob to right?  Well, that continuous pulse creates a “tempo”–the speed at which you play a piece of music. 

 

I’m sure a lot of you know that, but I find that in both the beginning and intermediate stages of my students learning process, tempo is often thrown out the window.  Just remember, you have to pick one speed and stick to it.  The problem is, even though we may recognize a steady tempo in the songs on our ipod, we may not have the ability to create a steady tempo ourselves without a little practice.  This is where a metronome comes in–that little machine that provides you with a continuous clicking/beeping sound that you can sync your notes to.  

 

So there’s my first piece of advice:

USE A METRONOME! It can be hard to use at first, I know, but the good news is you can mostly use the metronome as training wheels until you can “ride the bike” all by yourself.  As you get more advanced, you will develop an internal pulse that you always feel, and you can then sync your music to your own inner tempo.  After that point you will use the metronome mainly as a reference for different bpm (beats per minute).  

 

My next bit of advice is a possibly painful truth:

YOU MUST COUNT! Again, you will not have to count every note you play for the rest of your life.  But you have to earn the right to be able to stop counting.  Don’t skip this part or you will just always play incorrect rhythms-it’s not worth it!  And it’s not hard to do–it’s like remembering to brush your teeth…something easy that just requires a little discipline. 

Here’s the basic guidline: anything that is one beat or longer (quarter notes through whole notes) can be counted using numbers only.  1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, etc.  Any rhythms using eighth notes should be counted as 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &.  Using sixteenth notes?  You must count in 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a–or whatever method for splitting a beat into 4 parts that you’ve been taught.  

Count this way OUT LOUD every time you practice your piece during the first week.  You may think you can count in your head, but it’s a funny thing–time does not always move the same way in our minds as it does out loud, and often you will not be keeping even time.  

After you’ve practice the piece counting out loud for your first week, you probably will have memorized the rhythm and should be able to play it in rhythm without counting.  Again, don’t skip that part!  I’m sure a lot of you have already noticed: if you learn the rhythm wrong on a song the first time, it takes 4 times as long to learn it correctly than if you’d just learned it right to begin with!

 

Ok, now that you know some steps to take to rhythmic freedom, let’s go over some common rhythm-related bad habits:

1) Rushing during the easy parts: 

You’ve all done it, you’ve gotten the first 2 lines of the song down perfectly (because you didn’t take my advice in “the best approach to your practice sessions” -http://mypianoteacher.wordpress.com/2009/02/10/the-best-approach-to-your-practice-sessions/) and now you rush through the part you know and then slow down drastically when you get to the part you don’t know.  This is bad.  Make sure you only play the song as fast as you can play the hardest part of the piece.  You will learn the piece faster if you keep a slow, steady tempo than if you constantly slow down and speed up.

 2) Rushing during the slower parts:

Don’t rush when you get to slower parts of the song just because there are less notes in each measure.  I’ve notice a lot of students doing this even when they’ve finished the piece.  It’s very anxiety-inducing for the listener to listen to a piece that feels like it’s speeding up and slowing down.  We need a steady tempo.  Imagine your favorite rock hit being played at an uneven tempo–how would you know when to bob?

3) Accidentally shortening the longer notes:

Often I find that half notes (2 beats), dotted half notes (3 beats) and whole notes (4 beats) are cut short.  After you’ve followed my initial advice to count EVERYTHING when you first start playing and have graduated to being able to mostly “feel” the rhythm, you probably will still have to count the longer notes.  It’s just too easy to cut them short.

4) Trying to put 4 beats in every measure when there are only supposed to be 3:

When you’re a beginner, you’re mostly playing songs that have 4 beats in every measure.  That’s the most common time signature and most students already have a feel for it.  So watch out when you start learning pieces with only 3 beats in the measure.  About 60% of the time, I find the students trying to make the last note in each measure 1 beat longer, just so they can force the measures to have 4 beats and turn the song into the feel that their used to. 

So watch out for this!  Even if you’re counting 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, along with the music, you could still be doing it wrong–I’ve caught a lot of students counting to 3 like they’re supposed to–but saying the 3 longer (“one, two, three-ee, one, two, three-ee”)–essentially adding a 4th beat! 

 

Tricky business huh?  But don’t worry, if you’re conscious of the possible problems I’ve noted here, you will be able to prevent the mistakes.  A big part of learning rhythm is understanding what the pitfalls are and avoiding them right from the start.  It’s much harder to correct later after bad habits have developed.  So make sure you take note of this advice and you’ll be fine!