Congratulations to the Blue Devils of Concord, CA on their fifteenth DCI world championship victory, and thanks to all the corps for an exciting year of great performances!
Follow
Share
Drum Corps International Championship Results – August 2012
a rhythm space for all musicians
I’m a flutist with a clloege degree in music education and performance. To this day, I still have rhythm issues, despite the huge amount of improvement I’ve made over the years. Most of my improvement has been through strict metronome work. I have tried many other ways to improve my sense of rhythm toe tapping (which is bad as my tempo will start to vary), pretending to watch a conductor in my mind, using words for certain rhythms, taking dance classes, marching, playing and thinking subdivision, clapping, drumming with drum sticks, using rhythm books, you name it. However, I STILL can’t figure out why I’m still having rhythm issues and it’s a frustrating process, and I don’t want to become dependent on using the metranome all the time. I’m thinking that some of my issues may have been that I played by follow the leader for many years and didn’t do rhythm/movement stuff as a small child, so I’m wondering if somehow my sense of rhythm got whacked out. My new flute instructor has a possible idea that I may be losing sense of rhythm through the phrases-especially at rests or where I breathe, which then throws me off which is an interesting thought.For those of you who have managed to beat your rhythm issues, or have experience in teaching students with rhythm issues, what have been some your discoveries on why you (or your students) struggle/d with rhythm so much? What other rhythm suggestions do you have up your sleeve that I can possibly try? I’m very interested about this would LOVE to be rid of my rhythm issues for once and for all.
Thanks for your input Maria, keep watching this space as we’ll be updating with more ideas and techniques for improving rhythm. Hopefully something will strike you as useful!