Wednesday, September 11, 2013

Right hand / Left hand

When I stop to think how much torturous time is wasted getting small children to play with their two hands as though they were parts of a single limb it is not surprising that people grow up with the notion that Mozart always only played his two hands in perfect sync.

How dull.

Today in the supermarket I waved at a barefoot infant in a stroller, probably 6 to 7 months old.  I waved; he responded gleefully with a wave of his foot.  Good lesson in basic rhythm.

The more I free myself from the pedagogical environment the more I find happening inside of three-beat bars:  hemiolas in one hand against straight 3s in the other; patterns that seem to indicate regular three beat bars that sound ever so much better when played with an underlying contradictory articulation.

No wonder African rhythms are so much more interesting than what we learn in school.