A Rhythmic Ephiphany

[Derek Reaban]

I have been diligently working out of the Robert Starer Rhythmic Training book for the past several months focusing on internalizing pulse, strong beats and weak beats, and making every exercise in the first chapter PERFECT. It doesn't matter how slowly I have to take it, I demand perfection since I am really working on concentration, pulse, and pattern recognition. It is very satisfying to nail all 15 of these first exercises with no mistakes. My tempo has increased significantly since I began, but it is still what I would consider to be slow (no longer painfully slow).

I had my first Wind Ensemble rehearsal of the season last night. It's been a while since I've had to sight read challenging music, and there were several pieces that had mixed odd meter and others that were in one (very fast three), so my "rhythm" brain needed to be engaged. I also read all of this literature on my C trumpet, so when the transposition gets challenging, many times my conscious mind is occupied with notes in addition to rhythms.

Well, my hard work with the Starer book has paid significant dividends that I just realized last night. When we got to the pieces that I would have considered to be rhythmically challenging, I just "saw" the patterns exactly as I had been working on them in the Starer book. There was absolutely no conscious thought on my part about what the rhythm should sound like, just a general focused concentration on the music.

The thing that really amazed me was that several of these pieces were fast and in keys that required more mental effort on the transposition and had changing meters in literally every bar. I NAILED these sections! I have literally freed up more "conscious" thought by the work that I have put in so that when something gets difficult I can focus on it by itself. It was an extremely good feeling! I have built in MARGIN so that my rhythm autopilot is really doing its job!

I am very excited about getting to this same level with my Solfege book. If I can free up all conscious thought about rhythm and intervals, that will position me to explore the more expressive aspects of music with my conscious thought and leave the grunt work to my subconscious!

I know I've mentioned this book before, but now I will stand up and state without hesitation that using this book as a daily part of my practice routine has literally transformed a major aspect of my playing. And this for only two 5 minute sessions per night. I HIGHLY recommend it!

It’s $6.95 from Amazon.com.

Rhythmic Training by Robert Starer


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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona

[ This Message was edited by: derek reaban on 2004-05-28 15:02 ]

[Derek Reaban]

I found the other post that I submitted about the Robert Starer book. It's in the topic "Fundamentally - Where are your weaknesses". Scoll about halfway down the first page to my post from 8/7/2003. The focus of my experience with the Starer book was more related to interal pulse in that post.

http://www.trumpetherald.com/forum/viewtopic.php?topic=11444&forum=2

This book, with sufficient diligent hard work is one of the best investments that I've ever made for my playing!
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[musiclifeline]

FYI, I think the Amazon.com link you've posted above is for the Basic Rhythmic Training book, which deals more with the fundamentals of notation. I'm not totally sure, but I think the book you're referring to is the other one (same author), called simply Rhythmic Training.

[Derek Reaban]

musiclifeline,

Right you are! I have fixed the link in the above post. Thanks for catching it!
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[Derek Reaban]

I submitted this same topic to the TPIN list and have really enjoyed the discussion that has developed. I will post a summary of those conversations following this message. In case you may be considering some of these questions, someone has already asked it and I provided them with an answer.

Just FYI.
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[Derek Reaban]

Congrats, Derek -

What you've found out through your routine is that the ability to read rhythms accurately and quickly is a lot like text vocabulary. Large, multi-syllabic words that you see for the first time are often problematic for people to pronounce. Once that word becomes familiar, it's easy to say or read.

As you get used to playing different rhythmic patterns, they become part of your musical "vocabulary," and cease to be problems. Playing in funk or jobbing bands for the first time can be a mental strain (not to forget the physical!), but when you've played 1/16-1/8-1/16 tied to 1/16-1/8-1/16 patterns a hundred times, you get familiar with that rhythmic language. With most all things musical, familiarity brings comfort and ease.


And I responded with:

Mike,

I absolutely agree with what you've written. I think I've mentioned this story before on TPIN, but when it comes to knowing a word versus seeing a word for a first time the funniest experience that I've had with that was when my Wife's Dad was reading to my little boys from the Dinosaur Encyclopedia. When he got to the word pachycephalosaurus, he stumbled and stammered and did his best to fake it (he's a Pastor and speaks extremely well). My 2 and 3-year-old boys (at the time) both said, "Grandpa, its PACHYCEPHALOUSAURUS!" That was just priceless!

I do want to comment on one of the things that you wrote:
Playing in funk or jobbing bands for the first time can be a mental strain (not to forget the physical!), but when you've played 1/16-1/8-1/16 tied to 1/16-1/8-1/16 patterns a hundred times, you get familiar with that rhythmic language.

I agree with you here too and I also learn quickly when it comes to certain styles of music with "odd" musical notation after seeing it over and over. What I like about the Starer book is that it allows me focused time away from my horn to really learn a specific task. The more that I think about the subconscious, I think it's very similar to the story about my Father-in-law and my boys. By spending focused conscious thought helping my sub-conscious to really understand what it is that I am programming into it, it's like reading to a young child (conscious to subconscious). When the subconscious hears something different than what has been programmed, it knows the right answer and just spits it out.

That why I value this focused time away from the horn using the Starer book. I'm nurturing a very powerful advocate that I can take with me to gigs and rehearsals who will always "know" the right answer and just spit it out.
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[Derek Reaban]

Congratulations, Derek.

How I would LOVE to see my students share your love for mastery when it comes to rhythm and pitch. I preach it all the time. And my Starer book is on my desk at work.


And I responded with:

Bryan,

You wrote:
How I would LOVE to see my students share your love for mastery when it comes to rhythm and pitch.

I don't have my copy of Effortless Mastery handy, but the words of Kenny Werner rang very true with me. He said something like, "How often do we practice a piece of literature somewhat superficially before moving on to the next piece and then wonder why our playing is stagnating instead of moving forward. Wouldn't it be better to stay with a piece long enough until it was fully mastered before moving on to the next piece? What if it would take a year before that piece was fully mastered? Would it be "wasted" time? In fact, the level to which we would have internalized that information would be so grounded in the subconscious, that it would be impossible NOT to progress as a player. At that point we would be so demanding of ourselves that everything we performed would need to rise to the level of preparation of this one piece and future growth would occur more quickly."

The other source that I do have the exact quotes for also echoes this idea (from John Hagstrom): "Progress is the result of new awareness in balance with repeated experience. The first step is to be aware of what improvements you are looking for and having the intensity of concentration to sustain that conception as you make repeated attempts. When you are successful and are able to recreate your success over and over again, new habits begin to form, but they are crude at first. It generally takes a year to take yourself from crudity to mastery when forming a new habit. Mastery is what is needed to be professionally competent and competitive. It is when you can perform a given task consistently well under pressure – without having a second chance."

So Kenny Werner says to stay with the literature until it sticks (however long it takes). And John Hagstrom says crudity to mastery generally takes a year. Once I heard that, and really believed it, I decided that since I hadn't yet achieved the level of performance that I knew I was capable of, I decided to make some simple changes in the way that I practice. Now I have my own story about how I am staying with the material long enough to move from crudity to mastery!

When the level of difficulty rises to a point that I can't possibly direct all of my conscious thought to the many aspects of the printed music, it's nice to be able to hand off big portions of the challenge to my personal advocate who I have diligently coached to do his job without fail. My good pal, my subconscious!

I guess I really do have a love for this. It's so amazing to see the tangible results of the hard work that I have put into my playing! Now get back to tapping those rhythms. That last chapter is calling your name!


Thanks for your message!


_________________
Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona

[ This Message was edited by: Derek Reaban on 2003-11-12 17:08 ]

[Derek Reaban]

John,

You Wrote:
(thinking about my students) their time is just terrible.

My personal downfall was that my time was always much better than average. When my instructors started to be extremely demanding with me (after college), I never was able to figure out "what" to do to make my time better. It was just something that they kept saying that I needed to be more aware of, and subdivide and feel an internal pulse.

The Starer book gave me the tool that I needed to start working on these aspects of my playing. He comments that the book was written with an emphasis of instilling time (a learned skill) in his students. He says the exceptional student may not need to work through all of the exercises while the slower learner may need to generate shorter drills or write different exercises to address problem areas (and consider that this is coming from a Professor at Juilliard). I clearly am at the middle to bottom part of that spectrum, so I am spending as much time as is takes to MASTER every exercise before moving to the next (i.e. NO MENTAL ERRORS).
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[Derek Reaban]

Derek:

Did you start with the Basic book, or the more advanced one?


Jack,

As I understand it the first 4 chapters of the advanced book is what is contained in the Basic book. So, purchase Rhythmic Studies and you get both for the price of one.

Knowing that, I am just now moving into Chapter 2 after having spent at least 3 months of time on the first chapter. It's VERY simple at first glance, but I have chosen to tap the rhythms WITHOUT a metronome to begin internalizing pulse. I have also not allowed myself to move forward until the first chapter is PERFECT (i.e. no mental errors on any exercises). Some of the exercises are longer than the others (especially exercise 15), and to be this demanding has really paid off for me. Since I do this away from the trumpet, my focus is totally on concentrating until I get it right.

If you were to flip to the back of this book, you would just put it down and say to yourself, "That's impossible! I'll never be able to read something that difficult on sight!" The beauty of the book though is that if you diligently spend the time on the simple material, long enough for it to penetrate so that you have mastered it, you will keep turning pages until you get to the back of the book, and nothing will really seem hard. I'm not there yet, but I know that by the time I've worked through each chapter allowing sufficient time for the material to soak in, I will never have to "think" about rhythm again. I'm looking forward to that day (in fact I'm already starting to see the benefits)!
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[musiclifeline]

the preliminary exercises seem almost counterproductive, as they do not include weak and strong beats... any advice on whether to skip these or not?

[Derek Reaban]

musiclifeline,

The author says that there are several ways to approach the exercises in the book. You can tap the beat with your left hand and sing the rhythmic pattern, you can conduct with the right hand and tap the pattern with your left hand, you can tap your foot and sing the pattern, etc. The idea is to make sure that you are making the process as visceral as possible (i.e. you are internalizing the rhythm by assuring that you can keep the beat going without it always having to be your right foot, for example). Eventually, he says that you should just have the internal pulse happening in your mind while you work through the exercises.

As far as the first three exercises, they are VERY simple and don’t stress strong and weak beats. I used them for the first week or so to make sure that I could move the beat from my left hand to my right hand as well as in my feet while tapping or singing the exercises. When I got frustrated with the strong beat / weak beat exercises (4-15), I would fall back to exercises 1-3 to get a good feeling of performing an entire exercise perfectly. As time went on, and I could perform the strong beat / weak beat exercises perfectly I discontinued using exercises 1-3 altogether.

He distinguishes between the exceptional student and the average student. I place myself in that average category knowing that when I’ve completed the book I will have raised my ability to the exceptional level. If every exercise isn’t perfect then I’m taking it at too fast a tempo or I’m not ready for it. Keep that in mind and then decide for yourself if you are ready to leave the first 3 exercises for Chapter One.

There’s also another way to read through this book that is separate from the idea of internalizing pulse. You can turn on a metronome and let it keep the beat for you and then read through the more challenging exercises to instill the ability of rhythmic identification. The more you see patterns that are challenging for you, the more familiar they will become, and will slowly move from conscious thought to the subconscious.

I would suggest doing one session of exercises focusing on internalizing the pulse. This involves NO metronome and you focus on tapping or conducting the beat on one hand and singing or tapping the rhythm in the other hand. You must be VERY demanding of making the strong beat / weak beats happen for each combination (i.e. 2, 3, and 4). The second session would focus on rhythmic identification WITH a metronome. You can sing or tap the rhythms. You will be able to move MUCH more quickly through the first chapters because you are only focusing your conscious thought on reading the rhythm instead of on both pulse and rhythm at the same time.

I hope this helps! Good luck.


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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona

[ This Message was edited by: Derek Reaban on 2003-11-14 11:22 ]

[ This Message was edited by: Derek Reaban on 2003-11-14 11:24 ]

[musiclifeline]

Thanks very much! I found a copy of it at the local library, and I've been working steadily at it. It is amazing how difficult the strong/weak beat thing is at first, but it sure gets easier quickly. I've been working on the first three exercises after the preliminaries... I suppose when I get good at those I'll move on.

It's funny... I had a copy of this when I was in college, but I gave it to a drummer friend of mine as a gift. Now it's out of print and quite difficult to find, save for Amazon. I wish I'd kept the thing when I had it, but I probably wouldn't have known what to do with it without your post. Thanks again!
-mk

[Derek Reaban]

musiclifeline,

It’s truly amazing what has happened to my playing once the strong beat / weak beat framework has been internalized. There in much more direction in my playing and it’s now VERY apparent where “one” is and especially what meter I’m playing in (for an outside listener without the music in front of them). I know that when I listen to great musicians, there is no question about this “framework”. It is a strong underlying structure that defines the music, and gives me as a listener a strong reference point to what I am hearing. While this quality wasn’t completely missing in my playing, it wasn’t as well defined as it is now. The infusion of this somewhat “intangible” quality in my playing is one of the elements that is helping me to move from good to great. I hope you find similar results with hard work in this book!

I’m glad that my comments have helped you to explore this book in more detail. Good luck with it!


Take care,
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Derek Reaban
Tempe, Arizona
Tempe Winds / Symphony of the Southwest

[Larry Smithee]

Here's an interesting evaluation of the Starer book.

http://www.artlevine.com/rhythm.aspx?Category=5

Larry

[BGRtrumpet]

I remembered reading this thread a while back and have been meaning to try and get the book.
In the meantime I have spent some time trying to keep the beat in different hands/feet but am only able to really keep a beat and sing OR keep it in my feet and play/clap. If I try to tap quarters in one hand I can't tap a rhythm in the other...I get off. The exercises in the book are supposed to help with this correct? (Which is called internalizing the pulse?).

Many thanks
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Wilcox HS Black and Gold Regime

Benge CG

Most people use music as a couch; they want top be pillowed on it, relaxed and consoled for the stress of daily living. But serious music was never meant to be used as a soporific. --Aaron Copland

[richardwy]

Derek, thanks for the tip. Have it on my wish-list.
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1972 Selmer Radial

[Derek Reaban]