Most people who play an instrument of any kind have trouble with
rhythm. It’s the number one problem people mention when they
talk about learning music.
But I know a secret: It’s NOT their fault!
I know, because I had major problems with rhythm too, and it
took me years before I figured out how rhythm worked and how
easy it is once you grasp the logic of it.
The fault is in the way music is taught. You learn about quarter
notes and half notes and eighth notes and dotted notes and so
on, but they are just “floating around” on the staff — some
measures are longer than others — some notes are crammed
tightly into a measure — and overall it’s a mess.
It’s like the pilot of an airplane who can’t ever see the ground
and has no instruments to guide him, so he has no idea where he
is. He has no reference point, so distances are relative to him.
He doesn’t know whether he is going East, West, up, down — and
his chances of crashing and burning are excellent.
I was just like that pilot. I crashed and burned in rhythm time
after time. Let me tell you a painful TRUE story about one of my
“rhythm crashes.”
Duane Crashes & Burns
When I was in my late teens, I w as playing for a youth
group sing. I loved chords, and I used to do pretty
well playing most songs. But when it came to the “spirited”
songs — the ones with lots of rhythm and life, I was lost. I
overheard one of our youth leaders say “Let’s get someone on the
piano with some rhythm!”
Ouch! That really hurt. I knew it was true, but it’s not
fun to hear if from someone else, especially
someone you respect. Right then and there I made a decision: no
matter how long it took, I was going to MASTER RHYTHM. I was
going to learn every possible beat combination, and how to use
those beats in each song, and what to do in the right hand to
compliment what the left hand was doing. My search took me to
private teachers, music schools, combos, books of all sorts,
libraries, and listening to THOUSANDS of records, tapes, and
liv! e performances. I copied dow! n various rhythm patterns on 3”
by 5” cards, and at night I would analyze them playing them over
and over again on the piano. It was HARD WORK for me. It didn’t
come easy, like chords had for me.
Chords were a snap, but not rhythm. It was difficult to read,
and hard to play. I found myself rushing, dragging, stumbling,
and generally fouling up. But as time went by, I got a little
better. I continued to make notes of rhythm patterns, and
started a collection of books and materials on rhythm.
By the time I got my Master’s Degree from Southern Oregon University, I
was starting to get the hang of it. I was beginning to
understand what rhythm was, and what made it tick. I began to
categorize rhythm patterns into different groups, such as rhythm
& blues, jazz, rock, dance patterns, marches, waltzes, fox
trots,! s! wing, boleros, discos, ballads, gospel, bossa-novas,
beguines, rumbas, cha chas, sambas, and so on. But it’s one
thing to know a rhythm, and another thing to EXECUTE it on the
piano. So I developed a system that is VISUAL — it allows you
to SEE a rhythm while you HEAR it played.
Once you SEE it on the baseline, it becomes obvious!
That is the problem with the way music is taught: rhythm has no
baseline! It’s like the pilot of an airplane who can’t ever see
the ground, so he has no idea where he is. Without a baseline,
how in the world can I expect to understand the rhythm of a song?
But with a baseline, it’s a snap.
I wish I could show you in this article how it works, but printed words alone
don’t quite convey the idea. Please go to the web page now to
get a better idea how it will help you solve all your rhythm
problems: How To Solve Your Rhythm Problems
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