Piano Technique: A Lesson in Full Body Rhythm

A learn-by-doing lesson in how to allow your entire body to contribute to your sense of musical time and rhythm…

Lesson Goal

To profoundly appreciate the true nature of musical time and rhythm!

Musical time rhythm is not some abstract notion of counting in your intellect.
Musical time lives and breathes in physical motion.
Playing with good time is largely the process of learning how to get out of your own way.
Playing with good time is about incorporating the intelligence of your body.
Playing with good rhythm is not like hammering Nails into a board.
Musical time is like a continuously rotating wheel that has no beginning and no end.
Musical time keeps going round and round and round and round.
One way to get the feel of this is to pretend you’re a conductor in an orchestra and to keep the time with big circles of arm motions that never stop moving.
Time is the canvas upon which we paint with sounds. Every time we stop we rip the canvas.
Time always keeps flowing. Time never ends. No beginning. No end.
Don’t try to think time. Instead, feel it and enjoy it.
Watch Ray Charles play and be inspired to let your entire body to contribute to everything you play! (You can hear, feel, and see that he’s got the rhythm in every fiber of his being: in his fingers, hands, arms, shoulders, neck, head, torso, legs, feet, and even his toes!).
Trust the innate genius of your body to naturally express the flow of the music and enjoy the results!