The last post looked at beat and how it is the foundation for rhythm (read it here). Today, we look at another fundamental beat/rhythm skill your child will be practicing in Let's Play Music class: Subdividing Beats.
After a student has gained the ability to maintain a steady pulse, the next developmental step is learning to subdivide the beat.
I like to think of subdividing time like playing with wooden unit blocks. The blocks come in shapes that are precisely cut to have exact ratios 1:2, 1:3, and 1:4. My children spent many happy hours stacking and arranging the blocks to create imaginative structures. It seems that no matter how they stack and move them, the buildings always work.
That was UNTIL the day a friend gave me a bag of wooden scraps that were cut to be almost unit blocks. There were columns and cubes and rectangles, but none were in exact ratios to the others. It made it frustrating to stack a lintel on pillars. Everything was slanting and falling over. Having a predetermined unit measure for blocks is as important as establishing a consistent beat before layering on rhythm. In music or in blocks, divisions need to be in perfect 1:2, 1:3, or 1:4 ratios or things will start to sound messy. Let's take a look at choosing a pulse and dividing into perfect subdivisions.
Circular Rhythm The beat serves as a reference point around which other rhythms can dance. A steady pulse suddenly seems very musical when we start to alternate a downbeat with a back beat. Meter is the pattern of strong and weak beats in music. It gives music and ebb and flow and determines the time signature. In class we teach 4/4 (each measure has 4 counts) and 3/4 (each measure has 3 counts).
Although music is written out linearly on staff paper (so we can print it out), the concept of beat and subdivision is intuitive to understand if you think of it as a hand spinning around a clock- rhythm traced out in a circle- as explained in this delightful 5-minute TED talk. When I imagine a hand rotating around a circle, it seems natural to internalize the constant speed (rotation) of the hand. When we read rhythm linearly, it's also critical (but perhaps less intuitive) to keep moving left-to-right at a constant speed.
Jungle Drums Chant
So, the simplest beat is represented circularly as a dot at the top of our 'clock'. Each time the hand rotates past the spot, you play one beat. We teach our Let's Play Music students this asanelephant's slow footsteps in our Jungle Chant.Our bass drum plays a nice elephant-sounding footstep, and with voice we say "Booooom!"
The first sub-division is to add a second sound, or back-beat, at the bottom of our 'clock'. We use alternating hands to play the top and the bottom sounds while patting our lap. These are ourlion's walking footsteps.A snare drum or bongo set gives this division a distinctive sound, and with voice we say "Pat Pat."
This game is an example ofteaching by doing. Students have a hands-on chance to internalize how subdividing works correctly before getting into the nitty-gritty of writing and counting it. We're moving our whole body, vocalizing, and getting a little silly. Students will, of course, notice that the lion takes two steps for every elephant step. Of course! Lion legs are shorter than elephant legs. If they walk together, lion needs to take exactly twice the steps in order to keep up.
The next sub-division,dividing the time in half again, is our monkey chatter. Imagine another concentric circle with more marks on it, and each time the clock hand passes, our tambourines sound out the monkey's footsteps or we tap our shoulders with fingers. With our voice, we say "Chik chick chick chick." Monkey's legs are so short, he has to take four steps for every elephant.
Our final division, at a ratio of 1:8, is the cicada chirping. Eight chirps, played by tapping a maraca or tapping castanet-like fingers, are voiced with "ts ts ts ts ts ts ts ts." It sounds like a room full of cicadas!
Internal Rhythm On paper, it's much easier to represent musical notation linearly. The same animals could be laid out something like this:
If the elephant represents a whole note, the lion is a half note, the monkey is a quarter note, and the cicada is an eighth note.
Learning to subdivide and accurately play simple beats will be super useful, especially down the road when tricky rhythms show up in the music your child will play. Rhythmic accuracy is improved when students can feel the beat and subdivisions internally, even when they're not playing every subdivision. For example, a student should be feeling all of the sixteenth notes, but only playing what is written in this example.
Fun At Home Here are some full-body ideas for games to play at home to help your child feel the beat and practice subdividing.
Walk and Jog: Make sure you have space to move around for this Dalcroze-based exercise. The parent is the walker. Take large, slow, steps. Vocalizing something simple or funny with two syllables, "Left.....Right...." The child (and other family members)are the joggers, trying to take exactly two steps for every one of the walkers. Choose something fun to chant with four syllables, "Jog-ging, jog-ging." If everyone gets good at this, add in a runner, trying to take four steps. "Running Quickly Running Quickly." Trade parts and practice some more. If you have extra people, someone can stand aside and play a drum to the beat of the walker. Although we are not worrying about pitch when we focus on rhythm, you may notice that the walking person might want to speak with a low voice, the jogger might use a higher voice, and the runner might chant with a very high voice. Contrasting voices make it easier to hear/distinguish the parts.
Rhythm Instrument Fun: Don't worry if you lack expensive instruments. Find some kitchen items you can bang on or shake (wooden spoons, pots, dry beans in containers.) Have one person establish a slow beat with their instrument, and the next person come in twice as fast with a contrasting sound. This practice of exactly subdividing is really going to pay off at the piano! If you're feeling confident, try to play four beats for every one of your slow partner. Or three.
Jungle Drum Guessing: Here is another Dalcroze listen-and-guess exercse: Beat on a drum slowly to establish a tempo for whole notes while your child listens. Then change your subdivisions for your child to identify. If the rhythm is whole notes, the child guesses correctly by patting both hands on his lap to the beat. If he hears half notes, he alternates patting left/right legs. If he hears quarter notes, he pats his shoulders alternately. If he hears eighth notes, he alternates left/right hands tapping fingers like castanets.
Hand-Clapping Games: Here are links to 16 hand-clapping games you can play with your child and here are some more. While reinforcing practice of steady beat and subdivision, these games also fill movement, emotional, and sociological needs for growing kids.
Extra Challening: This one is tricky. Put one drumstick (or shaker, or other rhythm instrument) in each hand. Begin by having both hands pat/play slowly. Then, have the dominant hand play two beats for every beat of the non-dominant hand. Your child is sure to feel confident if she masters this! Then try again with the hands switched. These challenges are excellent practice for playing steady accompaniment with left hand while right plays melody on piano.
Play with Blocks: If you have building blocks, look at them with your child to discover ratios of 1:2, 1:3, or 1:4. Lay out a rhythm of blocks and read it as you clap the rhythm. Use the voicings from LPM class (boom, pat-pat, chick-chick-chick-chick) for different combos of blocks. And then build an awesome castle!
In my previous post, In A Flash!, I explained how we use flash cards to help teach students to read notes on the staff. Students can look at the staff and quickly say the letter name of the note represented.
3 Step Reading Of
course the letter name is not the full meaning of the note on the
staff. Letters are an abstraction that help us talk about keys and teach
music theory. We absolutely can't get through class without having letter-names for notes, but the piano key is the real meaning behind the note on the page.
Reading the note and playing it on the keyboard (Say it-Play it) is
the really practical skill, the end result of several steps, we are driving at.
STEP 1: A new student reads the note and identifies it "This is F!" (in my class, I have them sing the pitch as part of our game). Our purple flashcards help them learn this skill. STEP 2: The student holds a mental visualization of what "F" looks like. Our alphabet piecesgames from Yellow semester help them learn this skill. STEP 3: The student seeks and finds the matching note, in the correct octave, and plays it. Again, I have them sing the pitch "This is F!" for ear correction. What do we have to help learn this skill? Teeny tiny flashcards.
Teeny Tiny Flashcards I was looking for a way to really practice STEP 3 in the decoding process, and was delighted find these teeny tiny note flashcards that are exactly the size of a piano key (you can print them for $2) or you can get a similar, free version here.
I printed a set and mounted them on a foam sheet, and cut them up. I introduced them to my daughter in groups just as she was learning the groups in 3rd year.
Games I keep my tiny flashcards a little treasure chest on the piano and play games with my daughter to reinforce step 3 of the reading process. Just do one game for a few minutes each day instead of or in addition to your purple cards.
Say It- Play It- Lay It: Your LPM teacher likes to play "Say It- Play It". We just add one more step. Draw the card, say the letter, play it on the keyboard, and lay the card on the key to show you're done. Each time you play this game, decide how many cards you will do. As you get faster, increase the number of cards you do at each practice. Attempting the whole box at your first sitting can be daunting, so pick a number that will just take 3 minutes, and congratulate your student on getting faster each time. Alternatively, decide you will work for 3 minutes and see how many you can get done.
Bananagram: Each person gets 5 cards randomly. Ready, set, go! Put them on the correct keys as quickly as you can. When one person is done, they say "take two!" and everyone must take 2 more (whether you were done or not!). Continue in this manner until the box is empty...then give everyone enough time to finish placing the pieces in their hand.
Fix-it, Felix! This game works well if you have a toddler who is longing to help. Let your youngster arrange the cards on keys in the octaves you are working on (they will be laughably wrong.) Then, your student chooses one card, picks it up and moves it to the correct key, bumping off whatever card had been there. She then takes that card to its correct home, bumping off whatever card had been there, etc. If you get a point when a card goes into an empty slot, do a quick check to see if you have won (everything correct) or not (when you find a mistake, pick it up and start working again.) It's exciting if you can win in one run without hitting any restarts! Your toddler will love to clean up for you, too, if you cut a slot in an oatmeal can for her to mail the pieces into.
Crazy Composer Choose 5-6 notes randomly from the box and put them on the correct keys. Play the 5 notes. Then, play them in any order to create your crazy composition. You are allowed to duplicate notes and make up any rhythm, but you can only use those notes!
Sol-Mi Soundboard: Draw a card, play the note, and place it on the key. Sing that note as "sol" and follow with a minor-3rd step down to "mi". Yes, they key in which you sing will change but you should be able to sing a sol-mi anywhere, any time, any key (LPM Teachers practice this, too)! That's the joy of being able to hear and sing intervals. (play 'sol' then play 3 keys lower to hear 'mi'. The color of key doesn't matter...just count down 3). Repeat with other cards. No matter where you start, you can sing this interval, I know it.
Go Fish: Play this game once you have all of the treble and bass clef lines and spaces in your box. Each player starts with 4 cards. Ask another player, "Do you have any treble-clef-spaces?" If so, they have to give them over! If not, you "go fish" for a card. Once you have all of the notes needed to sing one verse of our treble, bass, line, space song, place them on they keys where they belong, then continue the game.
Where are We Going? Wow, the 3-steps for reading notes seems to take a long time: too long to be useful if we play every note in a song like that. As I mentioned in our post on learning to read, we read most of the song by looking at intervals and chunks of patterned notes. We only need to spell-check a small percentage of notes in a song, so it's okay if those take a little more time.
With practice, you'll also get incredibly faster at finding individual notes. When I read new music, I don't take mental time to think of the letter name. Because I have been conditioned, I have dropped that middle step and the process is faster.
It's like when we first learned to read words: we always noticed the individual letters (C-A-T) and thought about what sound each letter represented. As we improved, we stopped thinking of the abstract names of the letters, and just focused on the sounds they represented, and eventually moved on to noticing the whole word as a chunk. Learning to read music has a similar progression. For now, work on getting fast at matching staff notes to keyboard keys! Want to be a Sight-reader? Some musicians have a great ear, some are excellent at reading, and at Let's Play Music we set our students up to do both!
Sight-reading is the ability to look at music and play it correctly without having practiced it. How can you become better at sight-reading? A recent study surveyed MTNA-certified piano teachers and found that while 86% thought sight-reading was important, only 7% said they addressed it systematically with their students.
So it seems the answer may still be elusive, or may be the same for learning to read written words: read, read, read! This means you'll need a stockpile of easy-to-play tunes or a website that generates them for you. Songs you can sight-read correctly are MUCH simpler than songs you can play, but need a bit of practice on. So, you'll need a stockpile of easy stuff to start with. You might spend a few minutes at each practice sight-reading a few pieces!
1. Focus on Rhythm: The audience can forgive a mistake in pitch, but not rhythm. If you miss a beat, the whole song will be off (especially if you're playing with an ensemble!). Keep the rhythm perfectly and do your best with notes. 2. Don't Stop: Remember rule 1? The audience and judges will forgive a wrong note or two, but if you stop and go back to correct it, it draws attention to the mistake and disrupts the flow of the piece (and your ensemble will leave you behind!) So RESIST the urge to stop and correct. For sight-reading, you must keep going. (If you are learning a new song and not trying to sight-read, learn it measure by measure for goodness sakes.)
3. Let the most difficult passage set the tempo: Your goal is to play the whole piece correctly. You've heard this music before, and you know there's a tricky bit in the middle, so start off playing slowly enough that you'll be successful on the tricky bits, too. 4.Learn to look ahead: When you drive a car, you don't only look at the pavement directly under your car, or just in front of the hood! To be safe, you look a few blocks ahead so you know what is coming in the next 4-8 beats. In music, push yourself to be looking at the measure beyond what you are actually playing, so you can process and prepare for it. Only play any piece of music TWICE for sight-reading. After that, I'm guessing you'll start to memorize it. If you had a lot of errors BOTH TIMES you played it, choose something easier for your sight-reading efforts. Good luck with your reading skills: Read, read, read, and over time the difficulty level of your sight-reading material will advance. Maybe someday you'll be like Liszt: able to sit down and play challenging pieces you've never seen! -Gina Weibel, M.S. Let's Play Music Teacher
