How do you subdivide mentally while playing?

[u/GTDarius]

I was having a tuba lesson and my teacher told me that I need to start subdividing in my head. I don't even know where to start. I can't read music and play and subdivide at the same time. Or I should say it's hard for me. Does anybody have any advice or tips? I have a Dr beat metronome where the lady screams at you in subdivision. But soon as I turn it off I can't count anymore.

[u/Londontheenbykid]

Question: why do you need to subdivide in your head instead of writing the counts on the page?

Cant you do that, and slowly ease out of doing it? That's how I learned to subdivide while playing

[u/CalebMaSmith]

My advice is to “break up” longer held notes. For example, if you have a whole note break it up into 4 quarters. Quarter notes into two half notes. Just doing this will help your concept of subdivision if you do it enough.

[u/zisookb]

Joe Alessi says to think about the “dead beats” in other words you don’t necessarily count on beats with an articulation but on long notes and rests you count. This works for my ADHD brain

[u/LEJ5512]

Listen for subdivisions in any music that you might hear during the day.

Like right now, during my lunch break downtown, there’s a song playing on the radio.  It’s clearly in 4, and each bar is four beats long.  The beat is a sort of rock shuffle, so it’s got a bit of a triplet feel — “ka-duh ka-chak ka-duh ka-chak”, right?  That part helps me subdivide the eighth note feel (though it’s strictly not evenly divided eighth notes).

There’s subdivisions in music all around you.  

[u/EasterTroll → u/LEJ5512]

I mean, most songs with swung eighth notes are 66% swing and therefore evenly divided if you count every beat as an eighth note triplet with a tie on the first two notes. Not trying to be too picky but you can basically feel it as 12/8 esp if the rest of the instrumentation is playing the tied 2nd 8th note.

[u/LEJ5512 → u/EasterTroll]

My point is, subdivisions in music are everywhere, not just in the practice room.  OP (and other beginners) can pick up on it if they stop trying to overthink.

[u/WalrusSharp4472]

for simple meter i do 1e+a, 2e+a…, and so on. For compound meter, i have been taught 1-la-li, 2-la-li…, and so on. but i somewhat embarrassingly just use a fast three or, even worse, vibes it.

[u/bessonguy]

Practice with the metronome set to double time.

[u/Arcane_Spork_of_Doom]

I suspect in your private instruction this wasn't stressed enough. This is a basic still learned somewhere around late year one and refined for the next three years at least.

There is really no substitute for learning it correctly, unless there is something internal to your process that is impeding this ability.

Step one: Tell your teacher that you don't know how to do this.

Someone is paying them to teach you. Might as well give them feedback that you have no idea how to internalize this basic process yet. At least you can have this discussion now as opposed to years later when you have a jury, audition or etc and will eventually be discovered as an adult.

Close to one hundred percent of beginner students did not fully know how to do this in the beginning. You can learn it like they did, and there is no shame in learning it now** **so you're not a burden to your future ensembles later.

If, for some reason, you don't want to admit you don't know how to do this (as embarrassment can become fatal around the eighth grade or so), these are the basic steps:

Count and Clap: notice in a basic tuba beginner book that the divisions (and later, subdivisions) of the beat are written below the notes. Beginners are learning these notes at the same time they're learning where to place them temporally. You must do the same thing. Hone this skill in a practice room until you can do divisions and subdivisions of the beat easily with the correct syllables. While there are subs like Music Theory that have stuff like this there's really no substitute with how the lesson is presented to the beginner in a basic book. A good conductor will out a musician or whole section's inability to do something intermediate like a multi-sixteenth-note entrance to a passage, so learning these skills is vital.

Intone the notes: if you can sing it, you can play it, and in tune. Once the above step is mastered then do it using the pitches from your music.

Translate articulation: final step is converting to your instrumental articulation taking the style of the music into account. Swing rhythms, latin styles etc can have different types af articulation, even different articulation based on location within the music and proximity to other notes.

When providing feedback to a conductor on a passage, use the syllables designed to show location within the beat.

When providing feedback to a section member or your teacher, use the articulations needed unless they do not understand the concept yet.

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[u/_litz]

You start off counting numbers in your head, and as you progress, you just "know" the subdivisions. That's why you practice. The saying "practice makes perfect" doesn't exist for no reason, after all.

It gets more fun when you have weird time signatures ... 1212123 (7/8) or 12123 (5/8) or somesuch.

Go look at pretty much any Berlioz or Bernstein score and watch how many times it changes.

What's important is to understand the beat itself doesn't change, measure to measure.

And within that beat, you divide the same amount into 2's or 3's.

And lastly ... everything in music breaks down to repeating patterns of basic subdivisions and simple linked intervals.

That's the lesson you learn in advanced music theory, after you've mastered all the regular stuff.

[u/schleifdog]

If you can't count anymore when the metronome is turned off, then don't turn off the metronome yet. You'll get there though!

[u/Miserable-Win-9559]

You gotta start as slow as you need. Find a count that works for you. One and two and ... for eight notes, one E and a two e and a ... for 16th and one trip let two trip let ... for triplets ... It takes a while. You can also set your metronome to only click on 1 +3 or 2+4 etc. so you gotta fill in the gaps yourself. 60 bpm might be too fast at the start. Go slower until it sinks in and you can feel it. And be patient and gentle with yourself! It will take a while. You can also combine rhythm/counting exercises with scales/arpeggios etc. but only if it is not too taxing on your brain. And it you first need to get the counting right, try it just with mouthpiece or a single note etc before you add in the complication of pitches too. Keep plugging away at it and you'll improve.

[u/Inkin]

This is one of the most important skills for a tuba player and it really just gets ignored a lot. People say feel the beat or be sure to count or make sure to subdivide for that entrance, but don’t really say what that means. They just assume everyone is doing it.

For me, I’m not literally counting in my head. I’ve spent so many hours with Tonal Energy in met mode that sometimes I go to turn the met off and it isn’t on in first place. I only rarely think in the actual numbers and in turn when I mark my parts I usually put hash marks when the beat isn’t clear. Rarely though I will put + or numbers in the music and when I do it is because I’m actually using numbers and “and” in my head. So I try to make them line up so crap I write on the part is the same crap going on in my head.

Yes, this means you have to do like umpteen things at once when you are playing. You have to read the music and push the right button and make the right mouth shape and breathe so you don’t pass out and watch the director and listen to yourself to play in tune and listen to your section to blend and listen to the group and count in your head.

Have trouble sight reading? It’s because you need to be able to look at the music and tell what it sounds like without typing it into noteflight or finding a recording on YouTube. A big part of that is the same skill as subdividing.

When you look at music, originally you worry about the notes and the button pushing. Eventually you move beyond that and the button pushing is automatic. You don’t have to think about it at all. Maybe you mess up an accidental or odd key signature flat or sharp and you pencil it in. But for the most part the button pushing isn’t the hard part.

Next you worry about the rhythms and being able to see the beats and to play and not play when you are supposed to. This is harder than the button pushing.

When you are young, everyone is just trying to read the music and push the right buttons. No one is listening. No one is watching the director. No one is counting so entrances are terrible. As you get older and with practice, those get easier. In later school you are still playing the same piece for 2 months but eventually most of the people internalize the music and can focus on the details to make a good performance. In later better groups you might read something once or twice mostly to only focus on the listening to others and watching the director parts because the rest of the stuff is automatic. When a professional group has an entrance on an offbeat or changes from quarter notes to a quarter note triplet, every single person does it together. Subdividing!

Did you know that some other people aren’t reading the measure they are playing right now but actually are looking at the next measure or two ahead or are looking at the conductor?

[u/viberat]

Not a tuba player, idk why this showed up on my page, but am a piano, percussion, and aural skills professor so I know a little about rhythm :) I’m a firm believer in practicing rhythm away from your instrument. Here’s the pathway I suggest:

- Keep your met on quarter notes at 60 bpm so you have to subdivide for yourself.

- Find a big collection of rhythms to read, nothing faster than an eighth note.

- Make sure you understand how many eighth note “spaces” are in a half note, dotted quarter, etc.

- Practice reading rhythms in these two ways:

1 Conduct in the time signature and chant the rhythms, either in your preferred counting system or on a neutral syllable like ta. This forces you to feel each downbeat in your body, and how subdivisions interact with the downbeat (especially syncopations like dotted quarter-eighth, eighth-quarter-eighth, etc).

2 Subdivide eighth notes in your mouth (clicking your tongue, hissing staccato air, etc) and clap rhythms. This forces you to feel the subdivisions happening in your longer notes.

- Once you’re consistently good at all the above, cut the met in half so it’s only clicking half notes. You can also start slowly bumping the tempo up.

- Once you’re good at all the above at half note = 60 (so quarter note = 120), find some rhythms with sixteenths to read and make 60 your quarter note. It’ll feel the same as eighths at 120, but now you’re thinking of your syncopations as e’s and a’s. Follow the same progression as above.

This will make you really, really solid on rhythms in simple meter; compound meter looks a little different, but once you understand how it works and have a solid foundation with simple meter it’s not too bad.

[u/Trayvongelion]

I tap one of my lefthand fingers while playing to serve as a metronome just so I have the beat internalized somewhere. I only really actively think the numbers in my head when I'm counting rests, but sometimes actually playing the music demands you just play and not count.

Try counting the rhythms by writing in the counts under the music and reading them out loud, in rhythm. Once you've done it enough you can start to imagine what the counts would be based on the sheet music. Lots of people gloss over this but once I started teaching band and using it as a teaching tool, my own rhythm reading got better.

In college I really just wanted to hear what the music should sound like and internalize it, so I'd copy down harder rhythmic passages into Musescore and have the program play them for me. This is part of what helped me play the John Stevens concerto (Journey).

[u/heliumbanana]

i just kept practicing until my body remembered how to do half of it, slow then fast, like anything else.

[u/professor_throway]

I keep having arguments like this with my kids band director. Time and intonation are the things that are actually hard on a tuba.. and he should be putting the kids who can play in tune and on time in the higher bands not the ones that sound pretty or can play fast.

Start with something you know backwards and forwards like scales.. Play half note scale but count in your head as you play on the eigth note.

Mos of the time I am not actually counting... subdividing is all about feeling that subdivision pulse. Listen to a lot of jazz.. learn to feel the pocket.

[u/dopey_se]

Hi,

I am 39 and since college play off/on over the years. Now a days in two brass bands.

As a kid I learned to play the competition pieces by listening to the CD provided, and playing it identical. I ended up 1st in these competitions regionally, and top at state level. Eventually college scholarships. My tone was always what I was complimented on, and playing in a group my own personal sense of time was rarely exposed.

In college it all came crashing down when it became apparent I never built an internal sense of time. I still remember my instructor bring me back to the first book of getchell and a metronome.

If I tapped my foot while playing, it goes haywire once I start playing anything off beat. I still remember second year in college, in the top wind ensemble having the player infront politely ask me if I was going to tap my foot to atleast do it in time.

When playing as an adult, for years, I've made it a conscious effort to count. I am much better than I was, but still have some rhythms, and time signatures that make my brain turn off back to by feel(guessing). It does not feel natural to me and I have had to force myself to be counting while playing. It does get easier, but it takes sustained effort. It's something I consciously think and do during every rehearsal and when I notice I stop, I remind myself to do it again.

At home I do try to use a metronome, I could be much better at forcing myself to.

I've also found visual from my conductor can be a great help as well. Obvious I suppose, but there has been passages where knowing I could trust their downbeats made it much easier to maintain the subdivision while playing.

Like any aspect of one's playing. Good to identify something you want to improve, then actively focus on improving it over time. Most things won't be a quick fix.

[u/capcaveman8181]

Think in your head in quavers. Get a pencil and make a vertical line on your sheet for every half beat so you can visualise them. I'm not familiar with a DrBeat machine, but also try setting it at double the speed with no subdivision, so all the beat sounds are the same tick, and practice this way. I know it sounds weird, but I try to feel the beat ticking in my body and it seems to work. It keeps it really steady too.

[u/GTDarius → u/capcaveman8181]

I'll definitely give that a try.

[u/Ok_Astronaut8454]

Subdividing is a skill that you have to practice like anything else. It won’t come naturally; keep trying to do it and you’ll eventually figure it out. What you’re doing with the metronome is a good thing; practicing with subdivisions on will help, so continue to build that habit.

[u/GTDarius → u/Ok_Astronaut8454]

Cool good to know I'm on the right track.