Band Teaching Tips 4 - Move in Time, Play in Time By John Skelton

As I mentioned in a previous article, music is sound in motion. I happen to prefer this definition of music over Cage's "music is organized sound" because I believe it is much more to the point of not only what makes music unique acoustically, but also what makes it so special aesthetically.

It's also a very practical definition, because motion is what we study when we learn how to play accurately and with musical meaning.

Here's where I have to criticize the traditional practices in band pedagogy. When we think of teaching rhythm, we immediately think of counting. Now, don't get me wrong, counting is a useful strategy, but it has little to do with rhythm. Rhythm is motion. Counting is simply a numerical organization that only has meaning when used with notation. (Can we agree that notation is not music, but only a representation of it?)

A colleague of mine once stated, "We teach counting because that's what musicians do." Perhaps, but that's not what GOOD musicians do (including my colleague), it's not the ONLY thing they do, and it's certainly not the MOST IMPORTANT thing they do. The most important thing they do is to move.

Consider that when a conductor beats a metric pattern, they are not simply tracing out a shape in the air. To have any meaning, they must indicate inflection: a down-beat is different from an up-beat. There are also different kinds of down-beats and up-beats.

For example, in common time, beats 1 and 3 are both down-beats, but beat 1 is obviously more important than beat 3. As up-beat inflections go, beat 4 is more important than beat 2 because it must prepare us for the greater significance of beat 1. Numbers on their own make this sound very confusing, but in reality, it is quite easy to show and follow (without even mentioning numbers).

So, dear friends, as you play, please move. Feel the weight of the down-beat and the lightness of the up-beat. Let yourself follow the meter of the music (whether duple, triple, or some combination thereof).

One exercise I highly recommend is to find the down-beats when you play. Instead of tapping with your toe, tap with your heel. It involves more weight and motion, which will make you more accurate. (It also tends to be quieter, all shoes being equal.) As I will discuss in a future article, this is an excellent way to check for basic rhythmic understanding.

To be an effective musician, it is not enough to watch a beat. It's certainly not enough to count beats. You must move to it, or you will never be a part of it.