My first step with my students for our emphasis on Feeling the Pulse for this month is making sure that they understand the difference between rhythm and pulse. I want them to grasp the concept of the pulse being a steady ongoing beat, regardless of the rhythms that are played. I refer to pulse as “the underlying heartbeat of the music.” Here’s the quick activity that I’m planning to do at the start of each lesson next week:
Have a Heart – Feel the Pulse!
1. Print off one of these heart sheets.
2. Have the student sit on the floor and give them a handful of pennies.
3. Set the metronome at 80 and explain that this is the underlying heartbeat of the music (a.k.a. the pulse).
4. Instruct the student to place pennies in each heart according to how many notes they hear you play for each beat (for example, a quarter note would get one penny, two eighth notes would get two pennies, four sixteenth notes would get 4 pennies, etc.). You can tailor the complexity of the rhythms to the level of the student.
5. Play a 4-beat rhythm pattern. Check the student for accuracy, and then do the next row. Repeat for the third row. If the student demonstrates proficiency, increase the length of the rhythm pattern to two or three rows at a time.
I had my student James test drive this to make sure it would work, and so I could post a demo photo.
I’m also instituting a special deal with my students – every time they play a piece with perfect pulse at their lesson, I will give them one heart (i.e. I’ll draw a heart at the top of their assignment sheet). If they sight-read a piece with perfect pulse, they will receive three hearts! At the end of February, we’ll tally up the hearts and if they have 20 or more they will get a sheet music of their choice from my files for free!
I’m excited to see how things go this month, because my students can sure use a lot of reinforcement in this area! Do you have an idea that we can use for next week’s Fresh and Fun! idea? You can post it in the comments or send me an e-mail, so that I can post it next week for all of us to try. Same goes for any other suggestions, links, guest posts, etc. Let’s make this a group effort! 
HI Natalie,
I LOVE that idea! I just tried composing just using a story line. We talked about what Rain would sound like then thunder/lightning, then rain again (hence the intro to form). We ended with SUn coming out and then a Coda at the end that was a Rainbow. It was fun to see the kids catch on to this story thing. I said that nothing was bad, but all ideas were great. They are coming next week to share with others in the group and even name it something fun. It was just nice to do something differnet as we are having school closures due to cold weather. (subzeros here!)
Lisa
Ps to that comment- they are NOT writing it down… yet.
Maybe in the future I’ll have them do that. I’m just giving them the freedom to really explore the keyboard.
What a great idea. I’ve been pretty bad at teaching pulse. I’m going to try this today.
And I love that you give sheet music as a reward!
Hi Natalie, I did this with one of my student and it really helped. Thanks for posting it. I got stuck when I tried to do dotted rhythm though. How do you work around this? Thanks.
That’s great to hear, Lydia! Honestly, I didn’t do any dotted rhythms, but I could see specifying the left side of the heart as the first half of the beat and the right side of the heart as the second half of the beat, and then require students to position the pennies accordingly. That’s probably what I would try anyway!
Hi Natalie, I tried this exercise with some 6 years olds beginner who are just learning what a quarter note looks like. I found it didn’t really help them.
Maybe I am not doing it right, but it doesn’t seem to work too well with elementary students who haven’t learned 8th notes yet. I tried to use quarter, half notes and it was hard for them to see that one penny but nothing on the next heart is 2 beats! So I didn’t even bother try a whole note. Any suggestion?
Also, when you answer my post, is there any way I can know through email notice so I know to check? Thanks.
Sorry, something got cut off. With the 6 years olds, I was trying to instill the idea of pulse vs rhythm. Since they just started learning quarter note, I wasn’t sure how to explain it to them. So, I think this game works well with early intermediate students who are learning 16th notes or even triplets type of complicate rhythm. Thanks.
Lydia~
When I used this activity, I don’t even refer to the type of notes. I just tell the student that each tick of the metronome represents one beat. Then they are to listen for how many notes I play in each beat and place the corresponding number of pennies in each heart. I illustrate by playing four quarter notes so that they hear one note played for each tick of the metronome. Then I play quarter-quarter-eighth-eighth-quarter and ask if they could tell which of the hearts had two notes in it. This seems to do the trick. Even my young beginning students were able to grasp the concept when I presented it this way – even though they have no clue about eighth notes yet! Hope this helps!
In the right side bar, if you click on the “Comment Feed” you can subscribe to the comment feed in an RSS reader. That’s probably the best way to keep up with comment replies!
Thanks, Natalie. I think I didn’t use the game right with the beginner students. Despite that, they had fun playing the game.
About Comment Feed, I have already subscribed to it through email. I don’t have a RSS reader. I remember I used to get email from you when you reply to the comments on your blog, but lately it hasn’t happened. I just tried subscribing again and it told me I already did. Hmmm.
Here, try using this, Lydia:
Subscribe to Comments for Music Matters Blog by Email
Thanks! I subscribe again and see if I will start seeing comments again.
I just used these sheets in group lessons today and they went over well. Here’s what I did: I used buttons instead of pennies. For the younger students I kept it simple, but for the older kids I did compound rhythms and we had one heart for one group of 3 beats. I had them use the largest buttons as a dotted quarter, medium buttons as a quarter and small buttons as eighths. They got it! I would just say, we are going to use 4 hearts or 3 hearts or 2 hearts, etc. for the length of the dictation. Easy and low material cost and prep. Thanks!