Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2015-08-28 00:05
clarinetguy wrote:
> Most upper elementary, middle school, and high school music
> teachers teach rhythms with the traditional 1 2 3 + 4 etc.
> I've found that many students just can't connect with this
> approach, and never really learn how to read rhythms correctly.
>
I think the problem with it is that it's used with students who are too young. I'm not sure there's another way when, as the students age, their music becomes more complex (as you observe yourself below about "Kodaly" syllables).
>
> When I was a young band teacher, teaching in elementary and
> middle schools, that's the way I taught too. Students started
> coming to me, showing me how their vocal music teacher did it.
> He used the Kodaly system (a quarter note is "ta," two eighth
> notes are "ti ti," etc.). I started using it too, and noticed
> an immediate improvement.
But it needs to be built from the ground up. It worked in your setting partly because the kids already knew and used those syllables. The vocal teachers did a lot of groundwork to establish that system. I had the same advantage when I taught 3rd-5th graders, but we aren't all that fortunate.
> So many teachers of older students consider this to be a
> babyish approach, and won't go near it. Why? If students can't
> connect with the rhythm with the traditional 1 2 3 + 4
> approach, what's the harm?
As you note in your next paragraph, most of the music instrumental students play in middle and high school can't easily (or at all) be solfeged using these syllables. Most school systems begin teaching "general music" in kindergarten and the syllables are both age-appropriate and useful for the music they use to practice reading skills. Most school systems don't start band programs until 4th or 5th grade and the music gets too complex too quickly.
> I have young students sing with note names and Kodaly
> syllables. If a student is catching on, I'll usually add the
> traditional 1 2 3 and 4 approach.
You'd have to, because once you get past ti-ri-ti-ri (16th notes) and tim-ri (dotted 8th-16th) you're stuck.
>
> It's tough when you get older students who have never really
> learned their basic rhythms. You could go back to square one
> and teach them the basics, but most won't go for it. Your
> backyard technique sounds good to me.
You have to use a different approach to "square one." They generally won't go back to Kodaly or Suzuki mnemonics, but by then counting beats and subdivisions, which are more arithmetic-based, is more practical than at earlier ages.
One other side to this is that many students who have trouble with rhythmic accuracy when playing by themselves (as in a private lesson) have much less trouble playing in a group. In an ensemble they have others modeling. But there's also more likely to be an active, audible pulse going on somewhere in the musical texture that can help keep the student's rhythm on track - as though the teacher were sitting next to him audibly counting the beats in his ear as he plays.
Karl
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