Q: When my daughter practices a popular or folk song, she plays the notes right, but her rhythm is wrong. How can I help her between lessons?
A: Sing the melody that she is practicing. Do so while clapping your hands together at a steady beat without stopping, like a metronome. For example:
“Are you sleeping? Are you sleeping, Brother John? Brother John.” You will notice that the beat after each “John” has no note. You will hear only your hand clap. This beat will have a rest in the written music.
“Morning bells are ringing. Morning bells are ringing.” There are two notes for the first two claps, which are “Morning bells are.” “Ringing” has one clap for each syllable.
“Ding, ding, dong,” is much like “Brother John,” with one clap at the end without a note.
If your child requires visual aids, fold a sheet of paper in half four times to make sixteen rectangles with the folds. Every beat is one rectangle. To see them better, you may want to crayon a large contrasting dot inside each rectangle. Take her hand in yours and together, mark the pulse, touch the crayon dot with her fingertips, while singing the melody. Make sure that you are not tapping the dot for every. single. note. (Do you see what I did there? “Single” would take only one beat but have two notes in its beat.)
When she sits to play the piano, encourage her to sing the melody as you have practiced it together. Many students will not like this idea of singing in front of people, but remind her that singing the melody will help her determine if her playing is correct or not. It makes her a better musician!
