Klarinet Archive - Posting 000231.txt from 2005/06

From: Tony Pay <tony.p@-----.org>
Subj: Re: [kl] Bounced babies
Date: Mon, 13 Jun 2005 04:52:09 -0400

On 12 Jun, "Geoff & Sherryl-Lee Secomb" <gsecomb@-----.au> wrote:

> With regard to teaching INNER PULSE to those who don't have it: I have
> spent much time teaching clarinet to lots of kids, and inevitably one
> comes across those who haven't a rhythmic clue!
>
> One approach I have used to start the process is to get them walking. How
> often have you seen anyone who can't maintain an even step when walking?
> It seems to me that everyone has the ability to maintain an inner pulse -
> you see it as soon as a baby starts to crawl with any consistency in that a
> natural rhythm develops - but that when we ask some people to apply this
> natural pulse to something less physical and more abstract they have
> trouble. And so getting a child (or an adult for that matter) to go for an
> extended walk and asking them to pay attention to this evenness of pace has
> been for me a worthwhile place to start in the process of teaching a sense
> of beat.

Sounds good to me. And, the sensation of weight falling on each foot in turn
has just that combination of vagueness and precision that I was describing as
a feature of my own inner pulse.

I wonder whether this aspect of pulse isn't one that we'd be better off
building as a possibility into the other sorts of representation we have.
Obviously you mostly can't walk while you play, and ordinary metronomes are
so insistent. How about including a sound that could go, schooh, schooh,...
etc, or sschoohh, sschoohh,... etc, or ssschoohhh, ssschoohhh... etc, in
various settings?

I posted here before about my idea for a visual 'metronome'; but it seems to
me that a metronome of this simpler sort would be much less intimidating than
the ones we currently have, for people already a bit tense and worried about
their playing.

[snip of 'movement' method]

> I should say, though, that I don't think I would have used this method in
> more than about 5% of students, because the majority have not needed it at
> all, and for many with whom I have used it, it has been more to take the
> guess work out of syncopation and dotted rhythms.

Another difficulty is that it involves extra physical movement by the player,
which in general is worth avoiding, if possible.

Tony
--
_________ Tony Pay
|ony:-) 79 Southmoor Rd tony.p@-----.org
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... Never eat more than you can lift.

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