The numbers in my head

Nov. 4, 2008 at 1:20 PM

I had a very intense lesson yesterday. It lasted an hour and a half and could have gone longer if my teacher and I hadn't both had other commitments. Other than the lesson notes that I always jot down on the train on the way back to work, I waited overnight to really write about it but I'm still overwhelmed. I feel like the past two years, since I picked up an instrument again after an 8-year break, have been a prelude to whatever comes next.

I'd been just noticing, but trying not to form an opinion about, my relationship to beat and rhythm since I started playing again. In particular, I tend to feel the beat or the pulse in my body, not think it in my head. Sometimes, during something particularly difficult like the contemporary piece I played last spring that went from 3/8 to 5/8 to 7/8 and back again, I'd tap my foot (or more accurately, twitch my foot within the shoe so as not to distract the other musicians or people in the audience). The purpose seemed to be to get the rhythmic counting out of my head to make room in there for the notes and dynamics.

I really don't--can't--multitask. It makes me anxious and contributes to my stage fright. And sure enough, the more nervous I get, the more tapping and twitching I do. Sometimes I wonder if the people in my section in the orchestra can gauge how well I know the music by what my foot is doing.

However, while I try to just observe this phenomenon, to be neutral in the moment, I also will get a niggling voice from the past--an inner critic playing an old tape--in my head telling me that tapping my foot is "wrong" and I shouldn't do it. Voices like this rear their heads now and then to tell me I shouldn't do--or think--many things. Don't think in fingerings. Don't write fingerings in your music. Don't tap your foot. Don't get behind. Don't lose the line of the phrase. Don't play too loud. Don't play too soft. Don't play out of tune. Don't accent the downbeat. Don't accent the end of the phrase. Don't. Don't. Don't.

This lesson wasn't originally going to be about rhythm anyway. I thought it was going to be about high notes, shifting, and hand position. I have been playing the violin in my lessons this fall rather than the viola because of the orchestra music and because of a performance of the Bach Double in church that I did last weekend. To that end, I had decided to do violin scales and etudes, rather than viola scales and etudes. I had also discovered, to my chagrin, that although I own a nice book of Rode etudes and thought I had done them in my teens, I actually haven't. The book is mostly blank, the pieces unfamiliar. So my teacher immediately picked out #5 for me to practice. It starts with a pickup of running 16th notes to a D in 3rd position. That D is followed quickly by shifts, on 4, to an F# and an A in 5th and then in 7th position.

What I first learned from practicing this etude is that I had forgotten how much I hate shifts on 4. I feel like I'm leaping into the unknown. I don't know where my other fingers are supposed to be. So I spent most of the week trying to rectify that situation. I also found a place in the Mendelssohn where my avoidance of a shift on 4 was slowing me down and making it worse than just biting the bullet and doing the shift already. I spent a long time on the first 3 measures of Rode #5, going from D to F# to A, up and down again, and placing the rest of my hand so I would know where the 1,2, and 3 were supposed to go. I didn't even think about the rhythm. I just wanted my fingers to be grounded and secure.

At my lesson we started out talking about the Bach Double. The rehearsal for that had been largely spent talking about "feeling the beat" in 4 and not thinking 8th notes. That had been a departure for me, as when I first learned the piece back in 1978 I had been told to count 8th notes. The pianist said, "well back in 1978 you probably had counting problems, but you've outgrown those now." Have I? Maybe. The counting at least went well, the intonation, not so much.

Then at the lesson we talked about the Mendelssohn and how to subdivide some arpeggios in the 4th movement that are conducted in 2. How it really makes a difference, in my teacher's opinion, whether you think, literally, "one-and-two-and" rather than "one-two-three-four" or (as in my case) those beats without words that I think. I realized again, and verbalized it for the first time in ages (if ever) that I don't normally count beats with numbers, with actual English words in my head. But it helped to do that with the arpeggios. It helped me drive towards the right beat and stay clear and in tempo if I thought of that beat clearly as "two."

Then came the Rode. My teacher was on a roll with the beat subdivision. "Three-and-four-and-ONE!" she exclaimed and wanted me to repeat after her. I wasn't even sure which end was up. "Don't I have to start right after 4?" I asked, confused (it was a pick up). She explained that the little pick-up run was driving to beat ONE and that was why I needed to think of it that way. I tried. But when thinking of the rhythm I completely forgot/blew the notes and shifts. Even worse, the numbers "one-and-two-and" got confused with the finger numbers "one-two-one-two-three". I forgot which note I was on. I forgot where I was in the measure. I felt like my head was going to explode. I then noticed that I was getting anxious again, feeling ungrounded and scared. My hands were cold.

I wish I could say I rallied and played my best version of the Rode ever. I didn't. It was still pretty bad by the time the lesson was over and I had to leave and go back to work. Even the shifts and the D F# A were still bad.

But what I have now is a new and very different way of approaching a new piece. Being too focused on and distracted by isolated notes and shifts has not really helped me with those notes and shifts. My teacher's suggestion, to the extent I understand it, was like making an outline or building a scaffold with the rhythm. She said to think of the D F# and A on the beats 1,2 and 3. To hear those first in relation to each other. That's the first step. Then fill in the shifts and learn where my fingers are in relation to each other as step 2 or 3 (or even 5). My ear will help my fingers and vice-versa. I can do this. I think.

Learning to think of beat numbers in my head is going to be harder. As I said, I don't multitask. And my thoughts are so deep, so intimate, so much a part of who I am. I judge them and try to change them at my peril, it seems to me. Up until now, I really felt as if all my problems could be solved satisfactorily by writing them down, keeping a practice log, practicing a little every day, and searching the internet. I had a confidence about my ability to meet the challenges of being an adult violin student that had carried me along for these two years and had gotten me surprisingly, and gratifyingly, far. I am feeling less confident now.

At this point I have to take it on faith moving forward that this will work. I do. I have faith in my teacher, and it's not as if my former approach to intonation and rhythm has yielded particularly good results. I need a change and change is in the air. My teacher, who is subtle and skilled, has not joined the chorus of discouraging "don'ts." She has instead given me something to do.

From Mendy Smith
Posted via 72.90.121.245 on November 5, 2008 at 3:04 AM

Oh, I know how you feel! Counting numbers in your head while trying to play at the same time... after a measure or two everything gets all mixed up. Try the Body Beat. I got it and set the "pulse" on how the piece is conducted. It is helping alot. Like having your teacher tapping on you to the beat.

From Karen Allendoerfer
Posted via 18.4.1.146 on November 5, 2008 at 2:40 PM

I like the idea of a device that helps you feel the beat in your body without tapping or twitching your foot. Can you also set it to beat "1-and-2-and" such that 1,2 feel stronger than the "ands"?

From Mendy Smith
Posted via 72.90.121.245 on November 6, 2008 at 6:47 AM

Definitely - it does sub-divided beats as well and at different rhythms, just like a regular electronic metronome. I personally don't like it myself, a bit too much input for me.

From Karen Allendoerfer
Posted via 71.184.114.154 on November 6, 2008 at 12:23 PM

I only have a manual, wind-up metronome that swings back and forth (and a tuning fork at A440). Maybe I could get some more electronic gizmos for Xmas.

From Tom Holzman
Posted via 167.176.6.8 on November 6, 2008 at 5:41 PM

Karen - I suggest getting Shar's combo. It works well for me. And, why wait until X-mas? You deserve it now.

http://www.sharmusic.com/itemdy00.asp?t1=ST204

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