Low Eh!

As my students get more fluent in arpeggiating chords, chord scales, and key centres, I find that their playing sometimes becomes too eighth-notey – lots of notes, with very few breaks, and it can start to feel predictable.

Here’s an exercise that I use to help students get out of their rhythmic rut.

In this exercise, the player is only allowed to use two notes in a bar. Each line is the same rhythm, starting on a different beat. Any two rhythms can be combined to make a four note grouping, but it has to travel over the bar line. For example, you could use B-Blue into A-Red.

Depending on the student, I might get them to write out eight bars, or sometimes they are able to work on it on the spot.

I find that working on this exercise for five or six choruses of a tune gets the idea in their ears, and then when I tell them to “just play”, and not worry about the rhythm, some of this is retained in the lesson.

Implementing this into their practice solidifies the concept of leaving space, and starting lines in different parts of the bar. I get my students to write a few of their own rhythms and put them on a grid, so they are practicing ideas that are coming from their own ears. It gives them the freedom to use what they like while expanding on what they know.