Question about polyrhythm practise?

Question

I'm playing a piano piece that has polyrhythms, and I'm seriously rhythmically challenged. =/
For example, one of the polyrhythms is 11 against 6. 11/6 is about 1.83 so could I practise by playing hands separately with a metronome, 100 bpm in one hand and 183 bpm in the other hand? and then eventually put the hands together?

Answer 1

I am seeing with increasing regularity the misuse of the word 'polyrhythm'. There must be some awfully bad teaching going on out there somewhere! What you describe is not 'polyrhythm' (the simultaneous sounding of two or more INDEPENDENT rhythms). The Wikipedia article on the subject is seriously flawed.



What you describe are instances of syncopation and tuplets (grouping of notes outside the regular rhythm), but they are NOT 'polyrhythms'.

Answer 2

While Nemesis does a quite accurate and compelling justifications for at tempo practice there is also another important issue: what is the performance practice of Chopin. I'm not aware of any musicologists that suggests 19:4 is meant to be played in a strictly metronomic fashion. Before you get a particular rhythm ingrained in your muscle memory do some study figure out what rhythm you should learn.

Answer 3

Knowing the context would help.



If this is in a Chopin etude, the 11-tuplet is not meant to played exactly, but is in an indication to play the phrase with rubato. If this is in more contemporary work such as Wourinen or Ferneyhough, then you need to learn it precisely.

The best way to practice polyrhythms is to slow them down to a tempo in which you can set your metronome for a common subdivision. then gradually speed up to tempo.

Answer 4

Try my Bounce Metronome Pro - many pianists find it helpful for polyrhythmic sections - the bouncing balls in time with the rhythms, with "gravity bounce" help you to keep exact time.



http://www.bouncemetronome.com/index.htm