@navindra and (and @rsl12 @Sophia as well) this discussion of rhythm is super interesting to me!
The first thing I thought, @navindra , when I read this:
navindra 4/4 is a meaningless concept in of itself. Because I don't get the meaning of it, sometimes, I treat music as 1/1 and it doesn't phase me.
was that playing with other musicians could help. When youāre playing with someone else, you both have to have a shared sense of the fundamental pulse of the music. Tempo is about the actual speed, or pace, but pulse is actually more important. At least IMO.
And pulse influences many aspects. For example, rubato works because thereās a fundamental pulse and that pulse doesnāt get lost. When rubato doesnāt work, itās often because the pulse is not there and the piece starts to sound meandering. (Iām not saying your piece sounded this way @navindra , itās just an example.)
I didnāt watch the video @rsl12 linked (but I will!) But I suspect I know where itās going. Because I donāt think one can āgetā the pulse of a piece just by counting.
Counting is a useful tool for various things. For example, relying on counting is sometimes a good way to learn a tricky passage early in the process of learning it. Especially in a piece you donāt know or for a section you canāt hear in your head. (Again, Navindra, I donāt mean you here, this is the generic āyou,ā really I mean all of us).
And counting can help with a complex part thatās hard to play for some reason, like maybe itās syncopated in a piece where the rest of it isnāt syncopated. So you could count out those sections until you get the gist of it. But then if you really want to play it well, you have to feel it. And thatās pulse, not tempo or time signature. And counting wonāt be reliable without a sense of the pulse underlying it.
Another problem with counting is that it can be hard to push up the tempo if youāre still stuck counting something. Because representing the music in your mindās ear with numbers (i.e., words) is clunky and time consuming. But if the music is represented (in your mindās ear) with music sounds, then itās often easier to push up the tempo. In other words, if youāre counting āone and ah, two e and ahā or whatever, thatās harder to speed up than āba da baa, ba ta ta taā (just for example).
So counting is absolutely an important tool, but at some point in the learning of a piece, or at least in the polishing of it, we have to move away from counting.
Or maybe the thing to say is that counting doesnāt help if the inherent value of each beat is not consistent. So the basic beats, the āone two three fourā of a measure, have to be the same temporal length across a piece. Otherwise theyāre just meaningless words, not actual numbers or beats.
I also think this is part of what separates a piece āin progressā from a polished piece, and it might also be what separates beginners from more advanced players.
A note should be held for its full valueā¦ and not more. Rests should be held for their full valueā¦. and not more. I can always hear when someoneās sense of timing is off and a note is cut short, or held overly long. Or a rest isnāt āhonoredā and the person comes in to the next measure too soon. And then it sounds like theyāre rushing. With myself, often I sort of know if I have this problem, but then listening to a recording can really help me identify the trouble spots, and sometimes the true trouble is not the spot where the pulse gets off, but a few notes before it. When weāre playing, sometimes weāre so busy with the demands of specific passages that we lose the bigger picture of the total piece. But when weāre listening, the underlying pulse should be present, and consistent, across the whole piece.
And deviations should then sit on top of a rock-solid pulse. This is what allows syncopation feel syncopated. And itās what makes rubato glorious.
Ok, Iām starting to ramble so I better stop. š
