> > What do you think, and what has worked in correcting this > sort of problem with singers? > > Peggy
Spending an inordinate amount of time physicalizng the rhythm process. Teaching them to conduct. Telling them to go home, take their shoes off, crank the music up and FEEL the vibrations in the floorboards. Anything and everything that got them feeling and responding to rhythm. Clapping, stomping, jumping, anything to physicalize it. Working with more than one sense at a time. Vocalizing (aural), clapping (kinesthetic) and watching (visual) all at once. And by vocalizing, not neccesarily a whole song to start with, but rather percussive vocalization (like rap) or using the voice as an instrument vocalizing short vowel sounds or consanant groups (sh-sh-sh) etc, etc, etc.
I worked as a volunteer music teacher at my daughters school for three years. With my littlies (gr 1-4) in school, I had made up a series of tapes with all types of music from Michael Jackson, to tribal African drums to Classics that was predominantly rythmic and/or made them feel like dancing and encouraged them to clap and dance and stomp. (We had to go down the back paddock with a portable recorder so as not to disturb the other classes!). Schoolyard clapping games were also great for teaching this and rope skipping believe it or not. Once the boys got a bit of encouragement and applied themselves most of them really blossomed and even the most challenged improved when they were having fun and were able to get past their self consciousness. I also used group activites with percussion instruments (everything from rice in an empty milk carton to proper triangles) building their improvisations into a type of band performance.
I took some of these same activites into the studio and put tambourines and maracas etc into the hands of some singers and got them to feel and/or beat out the time even in classical arias if they had rhythm issues. I had them listen to the (same) resource tape/s and try out games at home. (So little time in the studio) What worked for one student who was highly visual was teaching him rudiments of music. Once he got the hang of sight reading he gradually improved in practical performance.
Of course, time-wise this gets in the way of the progress of actual vocal training but for some it simply had to happen. For some it also created some habits that later had to be broken. One notable example couldn't keep time unless she physicalized it (stomped her foot or slapped her thigh) so eventually (after two years!) we just had to give in and leave it alone. Drove band members crazy,(contemporary Christian), didn't look too great to me from an audience point of view, but it worked for her and she was happy, so I guess thats one type of success yes? (At least she now uses a tambourine.)
I've had far more success with instilling rhythm than improving "tone deafness" but then I don't think I've had any truly, incurably hopeless material to work with when it comes to the "rhythm impaired" mercifully.
Michelle
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