Irregular Rhythms
Years ago, as a student, I struggled mightily and (fruitlessly) with study 26 of Czerny's op. 299. This study has an even left hand part in six-eight time, with thirteen, sixteen, eighteen, nineteen, twenty, twenty-one and twenty-three notes in a measure for the right hand. Many teachers spend too much time on these irregular rhythms, which, after all, are not common, and are only met with in compositions of advanced technical requirements. To play two notes against three or three against four, is not particularly difficult when player have reached a point where their rhythmic sense has been developed considerably, though at best it is not possible to make such combinations more than approximately correct. But by much repetition with each hand separately the passages become automatic-(and all performances of difficulties must be automatic to be satisfactory)-and in playing them the Biblical injunction of not letting the right hand know what the left is doing must be carefully observd" Five-four time, seven-four time and alternate measures of different irregular time are musical riddles, for the solution of which the allotted three-score years and ten make no provision, and they may be left out of ordinary courses. We are told that music has said all that it can say along regular rhythmic lines, and that in the future we must look for advancement in the way of variety of rhythm. That modern composers are traveling along new rhythmical paths is very evident from what they are offering us. In a composition of Debussy's (just to mention one case) we are required to play one to a count, two to a count, three to a count and six to a count all in the same measure. These tasks can be undertaken only by the elect. They cannot be taught to anyone. Players either can do them or they cannot. So, while developing rhythmic perception and feeling as much as possible, do not waste time on difficulties that are of doubtful benefit even where there is a possibility of their being well done, for this possibility is frequently a slippery and elusive quantity.