Dear Friends,
It's been another busy week, as we barrel towards Thanksgiving break. I served as a judge in the University Concerto Competition. I started rehearsing in preparation for the performance of a two-piano piece on a composition faculty recital on November 18. My students played a very successful piano studio recital (I know I'm biased, but still, I was proud! 😊).
Anyhow, in last week's email, we talked about rubato as the musical equivalent of gently easing on the brakes when you play, instead of slamming them on. Today, we will talk about pulse and subdividing, and how that serves rubato.
What is “Pulse”?
We use the word “pulse” both in the context of music and the body.
In the body, your pulse is the regular beating of the heart as it pushes blood through your system.
In music, the pulse is the underlying beat that keeps going beneath whatever notes and rhythms you’re playing.
Your pulse can go faster or slower depending on what activities you do. For example, if I go out for a run or if I get nervous before a performance, my heart rate goes up and my pulse increases.
Significantly, your heart rate does not randomly jump all over the place from one moment to the next. If your pulse is around 70 beats per minute and you start jogging, it doesn’t instantly jump up to 120 bpm after three steps. It gradually gets faster, while still beating steadily.
That's the feeling we're aiming for in rubato. Regardless of the note values you see on the page, you need to continuously feel the underlying pulse beneath it all as you play.
On the page, music is written out mathematically. We divide time into beats and subdivisions of those beats, and these are organized into measures, which are governed by the time signature.
When we actually play, however, we want to create a musical line, shaping phrases and responding to the music in real time. Rubato is one of the main ways we do that.
That said, rubato often happens on a very localized timescale. You might have just one beat or even one note that you want to stretch a little bit; for that to feel natural, the subdivisions underneath that beat need to stretch or slow down.
Another important thing to know about rubato is that even though the word means “stolen,” we are honest thieves! If you take extra time in one place, you usually give it back soon after that. You might linger slightly over one beat and then let the next beat move ahead a tiny bit, so the overall flow still feels balanced.
Practice Subdividing
Last week you practiced feeling the beat with your whole body as you listened. This week I want to help you bring that same sense of inner pulse into your own playing at the piano.
Some students have the impression that subdividing is a crutch for beginners, and that the goal is to eventually get to a point where you are advanced enough to stop subdividing.
In reality, the opposite is true! Professional musicians subdivide internally all the time: the real path to mastery is to start subdividing and never stop, until it becomes as automatic as your own heartbeat. That is what will allow you to play with rhythmic freedom and still keep the music grounded in the beat.
As you practice this week, choose a passage and determine the underlying subdivisions. One way to figure out which note value to subdivide is to look at the smallest note value in relation to the tempo. For example, in a piece that is in 4/4, typical subdivisions will be either 16ths or eighths, depending on the tempo.
Speak the subdivisions out loud while you play along. You can use "dah-dah-dah-dah," "ta-ta-ta-ta," counting patterns like "one-e-and-a, two-e-and-a” or takadimi. Use whatever words or syllables work for you!
If you are not used to doing this, this will be a surprisingly difficult exercise to do. Either you will slow down and speed up your playing as you speak, or you will slow down and speed up your speaking as you play. But it is worth persevering until you get to the point where you start confidently subdividing everything you play. Eventually, and with enough practice, this will become automatic.
Actively subdividing is the "secret sauce" to effective rubato. I once heard the wonderful pianist and teacher Nelita True say in a master class: "Without a pulse, we would die, and the same is true of music. Without a pulse, the music would die!"
The goal is to always feel that inner heartbeat of the music beneath whatever rubato you are using so that when you play, you bring your listener with you.
Let me know how it goes! Also, if you have any techniques for teaching rubato, write back and let me know. Happy practicing! 👋
Kate