This is an open post for anyone to share. Have you incorporated any of the Feeling the Pulse activities in your studio this month? How did they go? What worked or didn’t work? Have you seen improvement in your students?

My students did much better with the “Rhythm Runs” than I expected. A few of them struggled, but most of them caught on pretty quickly. It proved to be a very effective way of getting them to really feel the pulse, too, which is great! This week will be our final week focusing on Feeling the Pulse. For this week’s Fresh and Fun! idea, I’ve decided to do a little combination of the Call and Response improv activity and last week’s idea. Using the same rhythm worksheets that the students used last week, I’ll have them set a beat and start by playing and keys or combination of keys on the piano for the first measure. Then, I’ll pick up with the second measure. And we’ll go back and forth through the entire sheet, with the goal being (of course!) to keep a perfect pulse from start to end.

Hopefully this will train them to look ahead and prepare for the rhythm that is to come, while keeping track of the pulse. I am just so excited at how much improvement I’ve seen in my students in this area throughout this month! It has been a fun and very worthwhile endeavor. Next month, thanks to a suggestion from Steve, we’ll be focusing on identifying key signatures. I’m really excited about this, and hope you all will contribute some Fresh and Fun! ideas. I would love to see my students really master the concept of key signatures and become experts at quickly identifying them!

Can you tell I’m more than a little behind around here?! I had a group class last week that took some time to prepare for (hopefully pictures will come this week!), and, on a personal note, I made an announcement on one of my other blogs about some exciting news! So hopefully you’ll forgive my negligence!

Now…on to week three. Most of my students did a decent job with the improvsation activity last week. They all did much better keeping the pulse in 3/4 time than in 4/4 time. So that was interesting. It’s definitely an activity worth doing again. But for this week, here’s what I’m planning to do: Rhythm Runs. I got this idea from a friend of mine who is also a music teacher. Using a rhythm drill sheet (I use the leveled worksheets that Wendy has available on her website), set the metronome to an appropriate tempo depending on the difficulty of the rhythms and the level of the student. Then instruct the student to walk in time with the metronome. Big, well-defined steps are probably the best. Once they feel comfortable staying with the beat, have them clap the rhythms in each row on the page while continuing to walk at a steady pulse. I’m guessing this will be a bit more challenging than some of the other activities, but we’ll see!

Also, my students are still loving the Have a Heart challenge! They’re saying things like, “I played this with perfect pulse at home“, “I’m pretty sure I’ll get a heart on this one“, “Can I try it just once more and see if I can get it with perfect pulse?“, etc. So far, the maximum number of hearts racked up in one week is 11, and they’re all intent on setting a new record!

We’ll have one more week of focusing on Feeling the Pulse, so if you have a suggestion for a corresponding Fresh and Fun! idea, please leave it below or e-mail it to me. Thanks!

Several weeks ago I came across the fabulous Piano Teacher Resources blog. Well, check out this very cute Rhythm Heart worksheet that Susan created. This would work perfectly for the Have a Heart – Feel the Pulse music game, and it is way cuter than my plain little sheet of hearts. I think I need to learn how to make better music-related worksheets!

How did week one of the Feeling the Pulse emphasis go for everyone else? The Have a Heart activity was a big hit with my students! I did it with every single student, and had some unexpected surprises. Some of the students I thought would do really well struggled quite a bit, and some of the ones I expected to have a little trouble caught on quickly and did a great job.

They are all getting into playing their pieces with perfect pulse, too. I decided to let them keep track of the hearts they earn on the studio door (nothing like a little healthy competition!):

I have a confession to make, though. Most of my students are really bad at this. I realized how little I’ve actually worked with them to develop the skill of keeping the pulse going in their playing, even if they make mistakes. We’ve talked about it a lot, but it’s amazing how well your ear can compensate for pulse inconsistencies when you’re not making a concerted effort to play through those mistakes. It’s especially difficult when you’re playing solo. Duet playing helps, but it doesn’t take the place of learning this skill in the context of playing solo repertoire. We’ve definitely got a long ways to go, but I’m super excited to see the progress we make in this area by the end of the month!

Now, on to next week’s Fresh and Fun! idea for Feeling the Pulse. This one doesn’t requires any extra materials. It’s a Call-and-Response Improv. If you have two pianos/keyboard instruments, you sit at one and have the student sit at the other. If not, just position yourself at different registers on the same instrument. Determine the time signature and then count-in two measures of the beat. You play a two-measure pattern completely improvised, using any notes. Then the student picks right up and plays a two-measure pattern also improvised on any notes. Continue back and forth, keeping the pulse flowing continuously between both of you (set a metronome, if necessary, to help the student keep track of the beats). Try different time signatures for variety. For more advanced students, you could even specify specific keys in which to improvise.

Remember, if you have an idea to contribute to the Fresh and Fun! ideas – either for this month’s Feeling the Pulse emphasis, or for a future month, leave it in the comments below or e-mail it to me. I’d love to incorporate some ideas from others!

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!