I struggled with rhythm for many years. The advice to tap my foot did not help…it made things worse. It just seemed to add one more task to my overloaded brain, and everything fell apart.
Justin’s tip on always keeping your strumming arm moving in time was an “aha” moment for me, and my rhythm go much better. And after 1 or 2 years of that, I can now tap semi-reliably.
A couple of months ago, I read the book “Learn Faster, Perform Better”, and it is the best collection of scientifically based music practice tips that I have ever read in book form.
One of the very best is to improve your rhythm by marching in place. @bkennedy74 summarized the technique in another thread.
My response:
Yes!
This is one of the best practice tips from the book - really deserves its own topic. Apparently, our sense of rhythm is closely associated with our sense of balance - which comes from the inner ear.
I always found that nodding my head worked much better than tapping my foot - and this explains why.
For the last few weeks, every time I’ve been struggling with a rhythm - guitar or singing - I stand up and start marching in place. What I’m doing wrong usually becomes clear in a minute or so.
This really seems to be a game changer for those of us who struggle with rhythm. It’s like foot tapping on steroids!
I’ll have more to say about his, but felt this was important enough that it deserved its own topic.
Yeah I agree, I will be putting this into my daily routine, anyway that I can get the pulse in my body first and then add the challenges to the pulse seem to be the heirachy of improvement here .
Never been able to, no need just use a metronome, if you don’t want it to be heard if you’re recording use a click track through in ears or headphones. It’s always been my way of keeping time other than playing along with the original recording.
Well then. So I should not be worried about marching in place around my living room at 5 in the morning while watching a Serie A football match? Perfectly normal behavior?
Walk in place at the tempo of the beat and play at the same time.
Just raising your heels up and down won’t have the same effect because this does not engage the vestibular system.
You want to walk in as normal and natural a way as possible.
It’s often helpful to start walking first and then join in with your playing.
This can be very challenging at first. If so, just try walking without the instrument at first. Then simple rhythms with the instrument, then more complicated rhythms.
If you sit when you play, swaying back and forth in time is a decent replacement for walking because you still get the vestibular involvement.
I started by just walking in place, and strumming muted strings - 4 downs to the bar. Then more complicated rhythms. It helped to count the rhythms, and I really noticed when I was on the upbeats, because one of my feet was up.
Things proceeded smoothly until I tried Old Faithful strumming, when it suddenly got harder. I could tell I was not quite getting it - felt off balance, like I might stumble.
Had to work on it for a few minutes, but soon things clicked. There was a very distinct sense of being in time - much better than when I tap my foot.
I experimented with which starting foot worked best…I’m right handed, but apparently left footed. That’s my strong foot on my mountain bike too.
It helps to count in, and raise your starting foot on the + of 4. Or just lift on “+” and lower on “1” to get started.
Molly says just lifting your heels is a bad idea, but I found that as long as I swayed and solidly shifted my weight from foot to foot, it felt like dancing while playing, which was really fun!
LOL I did 22 years in the Army between active duty and reserves. I’m not going to try marching while playing guitar, but if I did my Army training would make it nearly impossible for me to start out any way but on the left foot!
Right now, I only do it when I know I haven’t got a rhythm quite right. When I get it right, I sit down again and (sometimes) just tap my foot like a normal person.
But I wish I’d known about it 20+ years ago… I’m pretty sure I would’ve developed a good internal pulse then… Instead of a couple of years ago.
On the other hand, Molly Gebrain is a professional orchestra musician and viola, teacherand she says she does a lot of practice that way.
And I’m really enjoying the sensation of playing and dancing standing up, so I plan to do more of that.
Hmm. I never thought about that. I have pretty good rhythm, but I don’t know if marching had anything to do with it. They had us sing to pass the time on long marches, and to improve cardio-vascular (you know how talking while on a brisk walk runs you out of breath sooner? Same thing.) But it may well have been to help keep us in step as well.
I love the idea of applying this to some 200 bpm metal. :met ??? **\oo/ ** MM Looks like some emojis are missing after the “upgrade”, the price of pogress ?
