Re:The Neuroscience of Drumming
by rprospero on Monday August 17, 2015 @12:34PM
(#10074197)
Since there's a lot of drummers checking in on this one, I thought that I'd come in from the reverse side. Rhythm never made any sense to me. When we were supposed to clap to the beat of a song in music class, I usually just cheated off the kids next to me and tried to match my hands to their own. If that failed, I'd just clap every time the person in the song said a word. For children's music, that was usually close enough.
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"If that failed, I'd just clap every time the person in the song said a word. For children's music, that was usually close enough."
It's not just children's music. Most songs you find today, if you listen closely enough, the words follow the beat. I.e. every once in a while, a word starts on the "one" beat.
And we take it for granted. You'll very quickly realize something is "off" if that's not the case. That's usually what you find in "artsy", "look at us we're weird and different" type of music. Annoying most times, and incredibly difficult to get right.
I'm pretty arhythmic too, was about 14 before I learnt to skip - spent many humilating lessons at primary school when the teacher told us to skip (without a rope) and they didn't understand how I couldn't do it. I can't clap in time at all, nor dance (another point of childhood humilation).
As it happens I took classical piano as a teenager, but always had trouble with the rhythm.
When getting a medical exam for scuba there was a suggestion that I had an arhythmic heartbeat and I've always wondered if that could relate - perhaps my brain just can't do rhythm in any way at all ...