Eight Basic “Sight” Rhythms Young Piano Players Should Know

Learning to play the piano, or any instrument really, is an overwhelming experience for many young students.  You sit down expecting to grandly play a song you have heard and are disappointed to learn that not only is it harder than it looks, you have to learn to read another language as well.  ICK!!  This was supposed to be fun, not work, right?  Unfortunately, there is no automatic learn cycle on this one.  It takes hard work, it takes determination & most importantly it takes…(gasp) PRACTICE!

Wait wait, before you all run away screaming, let’s be real here.  You didn’t learn how to read just magically right? It took practice!  You listened to people read to you, you learned the ABC’s, you learned their sounds, you started to recognize things like the McDonald’s sign is really a giant M…

Learning music happens much the same way.  You have heard it, you have probably danced or clapped to it, so now we are just going to start working on it’s alphabet, it’s sounds, & recognizing that those small pieces make up the larger picture in our printed music.  When you learned to read a book, you probably started with sight words.  Words like: a, and, the, is & to.  Simple words that you just know when you see them.  You don’t have to sound them out or hunt down a dictionary to learn how to say them.  You just know.
Music has it’s own sight words only in this case, they are sight rhythms.  When beginning to play any instrument, there are some basic sight rhythms you should just know.  You won’t have to think about them when you see them so you can think about other things, like, which finger should be playing them or whether it should be loud or soft.   These are the eight sight rhythms every young beginning musician should know:

Quarter Notes
Eighth Notes
Half Notes
Whole Notes
Sixteenth Notes
Dotted Quarter / Eighth Notes
Dotted Half / Quarter Note
Eighth / Sixteenth Notes

These should be practiced each time you sit down to play until you just know them.  You can use flash cards, play them on the piano (or your instrument of choice), clap them out, tap them on the coffee table!

Parents: clap these rhythms with your child, ask your child to explain them to you & point to the notes as they name them. Then, make a game of it! Who can clap more rhythms correctly in 1 minute? 30 seconds? Who can name more notes? Who can identify the clapped rhythm first? Sitting down with your child at practice time not only shows your child that you care about their success, it allows them to see that even grown-ups have to work at new things!

You can download a set of Summer Themed Sight Rhythm Flash Cards here. Print them out, cut them apart & begin reading with your child!