Foot tapping

Whistle
1

Hi,

I’ve been playing for quite a few years now, but I just can’t seem seem to tap my foot along with what I’m playing :confused: I’ve got a pretty good sense of rhythm, It’s just doing two things at once i’m not good at. As soon as i start to tap my foot along with my playing, I lose concentration with either the foot or the whistle :smiling_imp: . It even happens when I know a tune so well that i don’t have to think about what I’m playing.
I know i don’t necessarily need to learn this but I thing it is sometimes an added dimension to a tune.

Anyone have similar problems? Probably mostly men… women can do many things at once :smiley:

Chris

2

Try starting the tune off with tapping your foot first. Make it a nice slow, steady rhythm. Maybe you can imagine the tune being played to that beat. Then try to play a tune at a slow speed while you are tapping your foot. Don’t start over if you mess up, just keep playing to your tapping. Pretend it is like a session, and if you mess up, then it is just a mess up and keep playing. I found now that when I practice tunes I always tap my foot. Practicing with a metronome is great too. Tap your foot with it. Just keep on practicing slowly, and it will come to you in no time. You will start tapping your foot without even noticing. :thumbsup: Just my 2cents.

3

I haven’t had that problem, but can understand how you might have that trouble. I grew up marching in Fife and Drum corps and school marching bands, so tapping my foot while playing is much the same concept as marching and playing in time. One suggestion, and something i actually do all the time when learning a new tune, I will review it in my mind while taking a walk around the neighborhood, and “play it” in my mind in time with my steps, like in marching band, stepping on the down beat. Another practice tip may be while practicing jigs, play a tune once through without trying to tap your foot, but really emphasizing the down beat in your playing, “pulsing” heavily on the downbeat, i.e. ONE-two-three, TWO-two-three; ONE-two-three… Then next time through, match your foot tap to the pulse as you play. FWIW

4

Another option is using a metronome. That provides a stable beat and shortly your foot will be following along. Once you get used to it, your foot (hopefully) will begin to tap on its own.

Then you can work in chewing gum at the same time… :laughing:

Best wishes.

Steve

5

I had this problem with the pipes (but curiously not with guitar or whistle). I got into a phase when I just wanted to play hornpipes. For some reason, I found it possible to tap along with hornpipes. Now I can toe-tap to any tune (except slow airs!!).

So my advice to you … Play hornpipes!!

6

Part of the problem arises when you isolate your tapping as a separate, discrete activity. Then you’re trying to do two things at once - tap, and play whistle.

Instead, approach it holistically. Remember, most ITM session tunes are dance music. As you play, you should feel the pulse not just in your foot, but in your entire body. And it makes you want to … dance. To move your legs, arms, shoulders, head. Get up out of your chair and bounce around a bit, or hop from foot to foot. Just watch kids respond to music. Like that.

Foot tapping is just vestigial dancing (or as fifenwhistle says, marching). If you truly feel the pulse, then foot tapping is what’s left when you’re dancing in your chair. And dancing while you play should be the most natural thing in the world.

It’s no surprise that some of the best tappers I know are also good dancers. My friend Ben Power (bepoq1 here) is a fine sean nós dancer, and he can execute complex heel-toe tapping with both feet while fluting. Another fiddler I know can manage full-on clogging while seated, with a well-placed board beneath his feet.

So don’t think of tapping as something separate from the music you’re whistling, but as a part of your total expression of the music. Not as something artificial to cause you to keep the beat, but as a natural result of feeling and playing.

In fact, because the whistle lacks the ability to pulse a strong rhythm the way that, say, fiddle or flute can do, the addition of deliberate tapping to your whistle playing can sometimes really enhance a performance (if not overdone, of course). Just think of the classic combination of whistle and bodhrán, or fife and drum, or pipe and tabor. There’s a reason that sound has caught the ears of people for hundreds of years.

7

I can’t tap consistently unless I have really, really absorbed and internalized the tune. And then I can’t help tapping.

It’s painful to do, but the trick (for me) is to slow it down ridiculously, and just keep at it until it’s smooth. A humbling process, to be sure.

8

Just integrate the tapping into your practice. Like a metronome, tapping can help reveal why one’s playing seems to lack pulse and evenness. Tapping certainly helps me to place accents in the right place.

9

This won’t really be any help to the OP but I can’t help but tap my foot. I don’t think about it, it just happens automatically. In fact it happens just about everytime I hear any music whatsoever.

10

really its not necessary to tap your foot, I read somewhere that during compitions in Ireland in the early 1900’s it was considered bad form to tap, if you need to do this to keep on track of the tempo…use a metranome!
I think though that like MTGuru said its like dancing and the more comfortable you get with playing and such the more your body will just start to move

11

I’ve been working on a quasi-Quebecois style foot tapping for reels. I’m getting fairly good at it.

An Irish fiddler I knew back around 1980 would always do this and I thought it was the coolest thing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Em-j4U2eeOA&feature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgQ9V2gJYpY&feature=related

12

I think if trying to tap your foot is throwing you off, don’t do it. I don’t know of any rule that says you have to tap your foot. On the other hand, you could tap as hard as Martin Hayes does and have the sound come through on all your recordings.
Susan

13

I actually prefer the tapping of a good rythm, than the offbeat of an offbeat bodhran player. :laughing: Really, usually at a session, you have one nice, loud foot tapper and that person can really keep the whole session in beat.

14

I’ve heard many a middle school band director voice amazement at their young students’ ability to tap their feet in tempos and rhythms totally unrelated to the music they’re playing on their instruments. Point being, don’t be discouraged that it doesn’t happen automatically for you - it is a learned skill (for most people), though most adults and/or experienced players may not remember that it was once awkward or difficult for them.

15

I’m the worst. I learned a long time ago that I can’t clap in time with a group of people, I start synchopating. I can’t just foot tap a whole song either. For me, It’s not just about keeping the beat, it’s about keeping the rhythm too. So, if I get to involve my whole body into a song with foot tapping, hand patting, body swaying, head bobbing, I’m OK. When I’m playing an instrument where I do have to count beats for a few measures, I can handle tapping my foot solo for that. I can also handle standing still if that’s required. I prefer when my body has free will.

16

I also struggle with the foot tapping, it goes rubbish when I play.

I always laugh in sessions when someone starts a tune but isn’t really playing in tempo and the foot tappers all start to turn into foot stompers trying to enforce the correct rhythm.

Will have to practise as suggested. Big Sigh. Yet another thing to add to my list of ‘to practice’.