The lack of a sense of beat or pulse in one’s playing
A good sense of pulse can carry the listener through a cacophony of wrong notes or incorrect rhythms. If the beat remains intact we can stick with a performer and barely notice they made an error but, if they lose the beat, even the least musical people in the audience will feel it in some sense.
Many students arrive to us with some feeling for the beat already baked in. However, there are a few who are behind the curve in this area whom we need to assist in finding that lost beat every time. Metronomes and counting techniques are often ineffective against beat arrhythmia because if the student can’t feel the beat they often can’t hear it either. Thus we need to find ways to get the beat inside these students, for them to feel it in their bones.
Symptoms
Prescriptions
A Pat on the Back
In lesson
When metronomes don’t work, sometimes you need to get a little more manual. Choose a piece your student can already play quite well, apart from the lacking sense of pulse. Set up a metronome at the tempo you would like your student to play – it will need to be very slow at first. Begin patting her on the back or shoulder in time to the metronome and then ask her to count in and start playing. Continue the patting throughout the piece, even if she strays from the beat a little.
If the ‘Pat on the Back’ was enough to bring her piece in line, then great! You have your cure. Just keep it up with all her pieces and try it out at lots of different tempi to let the feeling of the beat sink in.
If she still struggles to stay on time, ask her to locate where in her music each pat was. Help her find the main beats in her piece and mark them with a little ‘x’ in the middle of the grand staff. Once all the beats are marked, repeat the ‘Pat on the Back’ exercise, this time breaking it down into chunks and slowing the tempo as needed. You might try just one bar (measure) at a time at first, gradually building up to larger sections of the piece.
At home
She will not have you to pat her back at home so this may be one solution that is only for lesson time. If you have a particularly enthusiastic and involved piano parent, however, you could certainly enlist their help. Otherwise just continue working on this in the lesson and gradually wean her off the pats and onto the metronome alone. Once this is achieved she will be able to practice with the metronome at home.
Bucket Drummer
In lesson
Pick out a bucket, lunchbox, box, or anything that could work as a makeshift drum. Ask your student to tap a steady beat on this ‘drum’. Tell her she can choose the tempo, but it can’t get faster or slower; it has to stay exactly the same. Once her beat is established, begin to play her current piece on the piano.
If her tempo changes, stop playing. You might even crash dramatically into the keys in mock confusion. Help her to start up her beat again and then return to playing. Tell her the goal is for you to get the whole way through without having to stop and the only way to do that is if the beat stays at exactly the same speed.
Once she manages to keep the beat the whole way through the piece (even if this takes several lessons to achieve), swap places and set the beat yourself for her to play at. This time she has to get through the piece without straying from your beats.
Depending on the student, this may be motivating or frustrating. You might want to remove the quasi competitive element and simply ask her to try to stay with you as best she can for three tries, rather than looking for a perfect run. Use your judgement and your knowledge of your student’s personality to decide which approach is better.
At home
During practice she can be a ‘Bucket Drummer’ for recordings or YouTube clips. You might even assign a playlist of YouTube clips, and tell her to identify the ones that pull her 'Bucket Drumming' faster or slower because of their wobbly tempo. This would be a great opportunity for her to notice the relevance and importance of a steady beat and might provide her with the motivation she needs.
Related Diagnoses
Line Limp
Restlessness
Rhythm Allergy
Tempo Shivers