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