Can You Feel The Beat?

At the very core of our lives is the beat. It is a mystical thing, this repetition of sound over and over.  It is amazing, the fascination that springs from what seems to be a boring and simple activity: clapping or keeping an even and steady beat.  It’s not the most exciting part of playing music but it’s crucial to a well performed piece; a fundamental building block of music.


The most fundamental property of music is beat, an underlying, unchanging, repeating pulse.  Feeling and moving to steady beat develops a sense of time and the ability to recognize and coordinate movemnts within in time.    

The beat is something that we all like to keep, and you don't need to have any musical knowledge to do it. We all have clapped our hands, danced, nodded our head or just tapped our toes in time to music. This simple act is at the very heart of music making.  Many professional musicians will tell you that the distinction between a good musician and a poor one is how well they can feel for the beat. This "feel" is crucial and it is strongly affected by early childhood experiences. You don't even have to have music to keep the beat, although every opportunity should be taken to keep the beat to music when it is performed or listened to.

Before outlining activities, there are a few basic principles for keeping a beat, The first rule is to concentrate on keeping the beat very steady. It should be emphasized with children that the beat is not a speed contest to see who can go fastest.  It is, rather, an exercise in keeping together a very - even - steady - beat.  For many of the activities that will follow, it is essential to keep the beat as slow as possible. For children at an older age you can even point out the truth that the slower you keep the beat the more difficult it is to it keep steady.
So the-

challengeisnothowfastyougo,

but how slow you

can go and still

keep the

beat stea-

dy.

Steady beat is different from the Rhythm Patterns of a specific song:  Rhythm Patterns are patterns of sound that fit within the steady beat.  To illustrate this, tap as you sing each word of “The Muffin Man”.  The ability to keep a steady beat is developed over time, and can be started with very young children.  This skill is required for walking, talking, using a pair of scissors and bouncing a ball, as well as many other abilities. 

Feeling and moving to steady beat develops a sense of time and the ability to organize and coordinate movements within time.  Feeling and moving to steady beat develops a sense of time and the ability to organize and coordinate movements within time.

To illustrate a steady beat, tap with each underlined syllable as you sing the song:
Do you know the Muffin Man, the muffin man, the muffin man.
Do you know the Muffin Man, who lives on Drury  Lane.

Observe, Notice, Question, and Expand - Repeat The following few postings include fun ways to “catch a beat” – appropriate to the age / ability of your child. Any of the ideas for younger children can be used for older children.   When adding new skills or concepts, keep in mind the goal of increasing their self-concept as a competent musical person.

Try to remember to use these BEST TEACHING METHODS:

• Observe first (watch to see what they already know, or if they remember what they learned last time)
• Verbally NOTICE THEIR actions (label, comment, and imitate what they are doing);
• Initiate activities to expand on what they are doing well and are motivated to do. Start by asking questions: “What else can you do? Can you ___? How ____ can you do it? Where else can you tap it?” You can even make connections “That looks like a _____ !”
• Invite and help them try something new, “Can you do it like this?” Let them try to imitate, but if having difficulty, assist them physically to get the idea, then let go and see if they can do it.
• Sit back and watch to see what they have learned. Then repeat the skill in a multitude of ways to reinforce their abilities, for example, swishing hands high / low, or swishing feet.

The Progression of Abilities in Keeping a Steady Beat

The ability to react to the beat in music is an important learning process.  Many young children are able to steadily tap to an “inner beat”.  Yet they may have difficulty changing their “inner beat” to correspond to the pulse of music or a drumbeat.  Encourage, but don’t impose an external beat too early, it may result in tension, resistance, or loss of confidence in their abilities.  Encourage practicing a beat in a variety of ways. Realize that children will progress through these developmentally appropriate stages as they grow and develop their abilities:

• Let them experience a steady beat, by tapping on their knees or other body part.
• Start your own beat and verbally encourage them to imitate.
• Have them walk or march (without recorded music), and watch carefully for their “inner beat”.  Imitate their beat with hand movements, drum, sticks, or tongue clicks, then pace a rhyme or song to their own “inner” beat.
• Play music with a strong beat, and “catch” the beat with their hands on top of yours (clapping or tapping), or with them bouncing on your legs, etc.,
• With your hands over theirs, start beat, but remove hands after a few beats.
• While singing, practice with variety of hand movements and body movements.
• While singing, practice with percussion instruments.
• With recorded music, practice with movements and instruments
• Use beat to play simple accompaniments on melodic instruments, ie. xylophones.

3 Principles of Beat Keeping Activities

Priciple No. 1 is "Keep the beat even and steady"

Clapping Activity for Learning Steady Beat: 
Count to four and clap your hands to the count going as quickly as you can and still keep an even, steady speed.  Count to yourself to four over and over again in time to your clapping.  Keep this up until you feel comfortable in your count.


Concentrate on making sure the beginning of each syllable comes right on the clap. The tendency is to anticipate your clap with the beginning of the word coming before your clap. Try NOT to do that. Concentrate on the sounds of your voice and hands! Try to begin the sound of the number you count with the sounding of the clap. ( This is called hand-mouth coordination!)

When this feels comfortable keep on counting to four at the same speed in your mind or out loud, but slow down the clapping so that you now clap on the numbers "one" and "three" only.  If the steady, fast beat keeps going in your mind, the beat should now be slower and quite even. (Keep up your hand-mouth coordination!)
Now try and clap on the number "one" only.  Once that's easy, try it on every other "one."
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Principle No. 2: Keeping the beat takes considerable coordination:
Many teachers try to get children to march to the beat, but this is not easy for very young children.  It requires them to move the left foot and then the right in sequence while concentrating on the beat.  In very general terms, for the first years of school it is best to use beat keeping activities that repeat the same motion over and over.  Hopping up and down and slapping the lap with both hands are samples of beginning activities in beat keeping.  Even clapping is more difficult than these activities, as it requires spatial coordination in making the hands meet.


Only gradually will activities move into keeping the beat using a natural sequence of movements - like slapping first the left hand and then the right, stepping, marching or skipping.  Finally a true sequence of movements may be attempted e.g. slap lap, clap hands, snap fingers; slap lap, clap hands, snap fingers etc.
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Principle No.3: Physical movement should be a part of the activity in most instances:
Many activities will be more fun and will help children feel of the beat if you use a physical beat keeping activity to accompany the oral activity, marching for example.


Marching is a great activity for learning steady beat!

Marching is so good for children as they get a little older: this helps them to learn steady beat, they have their feet to the floor sending those beats right up their bodies to their brains, physical activity, seratonin and adrenolin producing music-making – DO IT NOW! Studies have shown that children who can find and keep a steady beat become better readers! Fred Rogers said that children are born with the beat. Makes sense, since mom's heartbeat is so close in utero.

Your child experiences steady beat when you rock or pat him to a song. This synchronized movement then allows him to actively apply this concept and internalize a sense of steady beat. Steady beat awareness is important to the development of smooth speech flow and lays the foundation for walking with coordination, bouncing a ball, and even using scissors.  Musically, it will allow your child to sing, dance, and play instruments in a group.

Do you have the beat?
Notes from: http://www.kindermusik.com/Teach/TL_Resources/ParentPerspectives/docs/fdd.pdf,
http://www.macaronisoup.com/Song.htm,http://www.macaronisoup.com/Song.htm