Why Rhythm Is Foundational in Sight-Reading

by Stuart Hunt

The Concise Oxford Dictionary defines music as “the art of combining vocal or instrumental sounds (or both) to produce beauty of form, harmony, and expression of emotion.“¹  To that is often added, something like the following:

• Sounds and silences organized in time.
• A pattern of regular or irregular pulses, some stronger some weaker.

A great deal of evidence supports the idea that playing and singing music improves brain function and has wide benefits in social and educational understandings.  The National Association of Music Merchants (NAMM 2018) succinctly informs us of the cognitive, educational, and social benefits of music education in “Facts and Quotes about Music Education.”  Graham Welch (2019) states that “singing provides an outlet for our feelings. Through its physical activity and the related internal endocrine system triggering, singing can allow us to feel better about ourselves and about the world around us.”  

We know all this.  Learning to read well  (or even at all) allows us to recreate sounds and thoughts of people throughout time.  In music reading throughout the world, being able to place the sounds and silences in time is critical to reproduce what someone wishes to communicate.

As singers we juggle pitch, balance with other parts, intervals, dynamics, tuning, keeping time, and many other skills. Choral music also juggles text, language, articulation. and more, but when combined with other parts, just staying together and knowing where you are becomes a critical skill.  

We manage

• sound/rhythm with a specific number of beats in a measure at a certain speed
• recognizing and decoding rhythms as a “package”; rhythmic groups we have practiced repeatedly
• looking ahead to prevent mistakes and getting lost
• turning spots on a page into music!

Most music educators would agree that the majority of sight-reading errors are rhythmic.  Recognizing intervals and audiating them successfully is very important, but if you don’t know where or when to sing them, what does it matter?

SOLUTIONS

David Newell in Teaching Rhythm (2008, p. 11) notes that we must

1. plan to allow mastery of each rhythmic step in sequence
2. plan and stay in sequence

That necessitates that the sequence  was planned and will actually work.  New learners or those advancing to more complex rhythms must develop skills to do the following:

1. Clearly understand  time signatures.  
2. Recognize notes and rests and their full  sound or silence.  Successive quarter notes do not sound like an eighth note / eighth rest. There is a difference and that is tenuto.  
3. Understand that rests are not “approximate” silences and must be accurately counted as the same value of the note they share.
4. Practice audiating as a critical, heuristic skill.  Learners need the tools to teach and correct themselves.
5. Learn to keep their “own” time, eventually, internally.

In my new book:  Counting Mastery Compendium  I add the additional timesaver of “packages.”  That is my term for learning to see a collection of notes, rather than read them as individual notes.  We all did that when we began learning to read.

Seeing a word like crocodile, would be processed as croc–o–dile.  As we gained more experience (practiced) we saw the word, understood the context, and said crocodile.

Similarly, here’s an example from my book: 

Included here are 

• recognizing a pattern of 4 eighth notes in different locations and configurations
• looking ahead 
• counting in your head
• keeping accurate time 

Those concepts have been previously mastered so combining them is training the eyes as much as the brain.

THE PIECES

Most counting / rhythm systems focus on just notes, but again, we only have sounds and silences – both of which must be counted, accurately.  Establishing a metronome in your head also requires the eyes to partner with the brain in order to effectively count. This stems from the temporal lobes, which are involved in short-term memory, speech, musical rhythm and some degree of smell reignition (Johns Hopkins Medicine, n.d.).

Understanding Time Signatures

Far be it from me to tell you how to teach time signatures, but it is foundational. Understanding the numerator and denominator symbiosis can be taught without lengthy explanation by breaking the signature into components. However, it requires some basic understandings:

• The relationship of notes / rests and note values.
• What constitutes a “measure.”
• Asking students to demonstrate to classmates their understanding of beats in a measure.  Mistakes are OK and will be corrected by classmates.  It is actually fun.

This takes a few sessions, so just be patient as it is processed. Ensuring mastery of this skill plays out the rest of their musical experience.  Make sure they have it before continuing.

WHAT IS USUALLY MISSING

As a conductor, I realized that one key component of counting is not usually and specifically addressed: rests.  So, in researching and curating Counting Mastery Compendium, I wanted to address rests as much as notes. The problems with NOT addressing rests are obvious:

• Inaccurate entrances and exits.
• “Following” others and entering / exiting when they do, which means, whatever you do, it will be late.’

Solution

A region of the brain called the putamen has a central role in our ability to keep a beat in our head (Kirkham, 2014).   By gently and assiduously reminding learners to “Look ahead,” “Eyes ahead,”and “Keep counting in your head” whether it is a sound or a silence, positive habits are formed. This does take time but your gentle reminder becomes their reminder. 

In Counting Mastery Compendium, after an introductory “equipping,” a quarter notes and quarter rests lesson appears.

Counting notes and rests, like learning a sport, letters on a typing keyboard, learning to express yourself in writing, and so on, are always incremental and should be sequential skills. 

Iconic UCLA basketball coach John Wooden never coached his teams to try to be better than their opponent. He simply taught his teams to try to prepare themselves to the best of their ability to be the best they could be – and the result would take care of itself. Two key elements of his philosophy were as follows:

1. A player who practices well, plays well.
2. Learn by repetition to the point that it is automatic (our band colleagues call this drill  or concept repetition).

You might also be interested in his Pyramid of Success (https://coachwooden.com/pyramid-of-success).

Coach Wooden’s says, “At the very center of the Pyramid of Success is Skill.  You have to know your stuff and that includes a mastery of details. This is true whether you’re an athlete, a surgeon, or a CEO.  You’d better be able to execute properly and quickly and that requires Skill.  As much as I value experience, and I value it greatly, I’d rather have a lot of Skill and less experience than the other way around. 

“Mastery of the skills you need in your job requires learning and it is why leaders and those who are high achievers are lifelong learners.  I had this motto tacked on my office wall for many years: “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”

Skill is an ongoing and lifelong process.

Understanding lines and spaces (conditioning, dribbling, passing, shooting) is best accomplished as a separate skill. For learners it is much easier than integrating with rhythm. It gives confidence to the learner that they have a better understanding of spots on a page and can put pitches into rhythms they understand.  

Rhythmic understanding and mastery must be accomplished at some point in order to amalgamate rhythm and notes/pitches into musical expression.  That should be at the base of your learning pyramid.  

Stuart Hunt is the founder of sight-reading and music literacy ToolsforConductors.com and has been a conductor and music educator for over 50 years. For samples of his new book, visit www.toolsforconductors.com. He can be contacted at

Sources

Johns Hopkins Medicine. “Brain Anatomy and How the Brain Works,” https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/anatomy-of-the-brain. Accessed on Oct. 12, 2022.

Kirkham, Elizabeth. “How does the brain process rhythm?” eLife vol. 3 e02658. 25 Mar. 2014, doi:10.7554/eLife.02658.

NAMM Foundation. Facts and Quotes About Music Education, Mar. 29, 2018, https://www.nammfoundation.org/sites/default/files/MusicFacts2018final.pdf.

Newell, David. Teaching Rhythm: New Strategies and Techniques. San Diego, CA, Neil A. Kjos Music Computer, 2008.

Welch, Graham. “The Benefits of Singing.” Sing Up, Aug. 7, 2019, https://www.singup.org/blog/article/1390-the-benefits-of-singing/.