How do you teach rhythm to novices?
Beginning piano lessons, piano lessons for beginners. There is so much to cover, not enough time, and what do you send a student home with?
In 30 years of teaching (yikes! I'm still young) I have found that teaching rhythm is challenging, and harder to teach than pitch. As a result, I have been experimenting with ideas to teach rhythm.
Last year I was taking big band arranging lessons with Elliot Deutsch who leads the Pandemonium Big Band and has a YouTube channel teaching big band arranging. He told me that there are 8 different 2 beat rhythms that were made up of half notes, quarter notes, eighth notes and dotted quarter notes. (Can you think of them?) Once you learn those 8 patterns, they apply to every genre and type of music there is.
However, for beginning students, counting 8th notes with "1 and 2 and" is difficult, as is solving rhythmic equations to come up with the 2 beat measures.
Then there is the issue of pulse, which all the rhythms dance upon. That steady beat that keeps everyone on the same page and music played by groups steady.
It dawned on me that if I multiply the 8 2-beat rhythms by 2, I can teach pulse, plus those same 8 rhythms. And, I can get recognition of whole notes, dotted half notes, and quarter notes at the same time. And, I increase student engagement.
Here are a couple of videos to explain what I'm talking about. You can download the worksheets below.
I use the worksheet and exercises with students as young as 5 and 6 and as old as older than me ;-) These worksheets are adaptable and can be used with all ages.
This worksheet has 3 levels of the 8 rhythms. It's jumping off point. What to do next will be coming soon.
Boogie and Spy card expansion set, which contains the Boogie Card will be coming in March 2024