Rhythm: The Most Important Element of Music!

FULL ARTICLE:

[realityvanguard]

i CAME HERE READY TO ARGUE BUT HE'S RIGHT

[kathyplaza]

I play guitar and fiddle with my Bluegrass friends in jams, and when one player is off in their rhythm, it throws us all off. It's usually the person who doesn't play with a metronome at home or without a good backup going. A person who practices alone without being careful about their rhythm may think they are playing a tune correctly until they have to play with others or when they try to accompany a tune off a CD or the internet.

[CThaldorf]

I got it about half way through what you were playing. I've been working with a metronome for about the past three weeks and, as frustrating as it can be, I'm starting to feel more confident in my music.

[tonyping]

I got the piece right away but he’s absolutely right! Rhythm is the most important

[papillonpapillon]

Makes me think that rhythm is like what contrasts are in drawing. I listened to a Youtube video of an artist once who was saying that the hardest thing for beginners was to really understand how to make good dark versus light. Feels like rhythm is that to music. If you don't accentuate it. If you are mushy with it and not precise music will not shine to its best. Not sure if my example is the best but that's what came to my mind when I listened to you. Thank you as always. Didn't get Beethoven from the series of notes you played. I got that there was a lot of repeated notes that were supposed to mean something though. :-)

[thebowinarrow]

Robert you are good at making examples and I’m not sure about everybody but some of those examples make me laugh, these videos help me a lot because I don’t have a music teacher so these videos point out some of the things I should improve, thank you for making these videos

[joegrant]

Love it! Your main point is so right. However, I think too many musicians think and play by an exact timing grid now. There needs to be less rigidity to time that we’ve lost which used to make music feel more alive.

[dallemon]

High time that somebody discuss the importance of rhythm. Your example demonstrated the presence and absence of the musical piece's TIMING. With the proper timing, or the timing which the composer intends, the RHYTHM becomes apparent, and the music feels like something.

[edsknife]

Now to figure out WHY composers pick the rhythms they do.

[rafaelgomez]

GREAT " PARTY" ANALOGY....RHYTHM = WHEN !!!@

[justaman]

Lol, u can play every note in a piece, two hand mush! There it is.

[richardlehoux]

How does the 5th sound with only the rythme and not the note? I have tried on my piano and it sound like an angry driver stuck in traffic. I alway thought the definition of music was notes played trough time. You can't separate one from the other. This video did not convince me but since I'm a total amateur I could definitely be wrong. :)

[stepheebee]

I love so much in 'Jesu, Joy of Man's Desiring' that the right hand melody, the notes are all the same value length nearly the whole time. I don't know other pieces that do that. Can anyone think of any? Been fascinated by that a long time. It's very hard to write something that does that that works.

[Kimmobiino]

And then once you've labored so hard to get the rhythms just right the teacher says now let go a bit but keep the pulse and try the right and left hand have 'independence' and 'freedom' in a polyrhythmic texture.. Thank u Chopin for giving us such challanges even in easy pieces so we in the swamp of mediocracy know our place..

[jimmygiannakis]

Didn't get it right away.
So what is the deal with that stripped down piano you play in your videos??

[michelprimeau]

What? You are not speaking about Piano Day today!

[robinsss]

HE'S WRONG

MELODY IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN RHYTHYM