Shawn Cheek Rhythm

Piano Lessons Online - Shawn's Blog - Web Piano Teacher

This article and video is the property of Shawn Cheek, creator of www.webpianoteacher.com, and is designed to help pianists learn to play by ear.

This is the question I get: How do I get my hands to play together? I feel so uncoordinated and frustrated! The issue here is FEELING the rhythm and accents. We have to get past trying to count everything out. Sure, we must count to get started sometimes, but the real truth is that musicians are NOT counting all the time. We FEEL the rhythm. Then your question may be, well why can’t I feel the rhythm? Usually, it’s because you’re trying to jump ahead too fast. Maybe you haven’t had enough simpler rhythmic patterns to build up to what you are currently trying to do. You WON’T be able to pull off a complicated rhythmic pattern until you can do the simpler ones with ease. Period. There can be no roof until there is a foundation and then a house.

The video that goes along with this article contains some chord patterns and rhythms that will help you tremendously if you’ll do them like a zillion times. Successful musicians are many times just average talent people who work really, really, really, hard and don’t give up. Enjoy the video lesson, and please consider becoming a member of my website because musicians have to eat, too!

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