What's your tapping foot?

[monkey587]

I don't need to, but it reassures me that I'm staying at a consistant tempo,not speeding up or anything. I would most likely have consistant tempo anyway,but this way I'm sure.

My sax teacher refutes this - it's one of my whistle habits that drives him nuts. He says it's impossible to keep steady foot rhythm unless you know a piece very well...or your foot will slow to compensate. If standing with the band, I always tap my foot...when recording last summer we all had to remove our shoes!! Sitting in sessions - suppose I don't, but I hate sitting to play.

Trisha

I think that's true for the most part. I don't think it directly helps with tempo, but it can help people feel the beat, which can lead to an overall improvement in confidence about the beat, which can lead to improved steadiness of tempo. I think the further along that chain you go, though, the less improvement you're likely to see. Often I see my guitar students trying to tap their feet along with the music they're playing, and their feet hesitate to match their hands' hesitations, and they don't even necessarily realize anything has gone wrong.

[ChrisA]

I disagree, actually, in that, I think you can have a rock-steady foot rhythm regardless of how well you know the piece you're playing. (Within limits: When sounding out a piece at 20bpm or such, it's really hard to hold a rhythm that slow!) However, I'm not a 'natural' foot-tapper, I taught myself to foot-tap along with a metronome, and deliberately taught myself to disconnect the rhythm of my foot from the action of my fingers. So, for a 'natural' foot-tapper who hasn't practiced the disconnect, it may be harder. Certainly that disconnect was the most difficult thing to teach myself.

By disconnect, I mean, the foot must not follow the fingers. Of course, you want the fingers to follow the foot.

I find playing to a metronome alone to be very difficult... it just fades into the background and becomes irrelevant to where I'm focused. But I can make my foot follow the metronome, and the rhythm of my foot does not become irrelevant.

Of course, I also have absolutely -no- natural sense of rhythm. As a youth, I couldn't even clap in time with simple beats. All my rhythm practice has accomplished at least that much, though.

Anyway. My point was, more or less, that natural, casual foot-tapping can easily lead you astray, but as a practiced rhythm aid, I find it very helpful, -especially- if I fumble notes, because then I know where to come back in for the next bit.

YMMV. Void were prohibited by law. IANALATINLAIYRLAYSCWAA.

--Chris

[monkey587]

Anyway. My point was, more or less, that natural, casual foot-tapping can easily lead you astray, but as a practiced rhythm aid, I find it very helpful, -especially- if I fumble notes, because then I know where to come back in for the next bit.

--Chris

For this purpose, rather than tapping my foot, I have the tune running through my head as I play. If I play wrong notes or take a breath or something, I always know where to get back into it.

This is actually a new thing for me, but I found that I picked it up quickly, but only after making the conscious effort to use my ear to learn things rather than my fingers and notes. Two years ago I got into classical guitar and note reading, and I still do that a lot, but the difference (thanks to my folk music side) is that I get the sound of it in my head as I am playing from the notes. I memorize music much more quickly now, including polyphonic classical music, and I have the sound of the music memorized rather than the procedure.

I, too, had a really lousy sense of rhythm for most of my life. I practiced (guitar) with a metronome religiously for a year or so, and the problem was gone. The trick for me was to imagine that the act of playing the guitar was causing the metronome to click. Eventually, I couldn't hear the metronome anymore because it was exactly synchronized with my attacks. Now I just feel tension when the rhythm starts to slip.

[FJohnSharp]

This all just goes to show there is no "one" way. And that's the beauty.

[lixnaw]

This all just goes to show there is no "one" way. And that's the beauty.

i believe the others who voted for both feet, aren't realy sure.

[Darwin]

i believe the others who voted for both feet, aren't realy sure.

Hmph! I'll refrain from saying what I believe.

My foot tapping comes from blues and Bluegrass guitar playing, and I tend to tap all sorts of odd two-foot patterns, and change them up as I go. It's never really conscious, and usually seems limited to relatively fast tunes, or to tunes that have a heavy beat. I think I tap more for swing than for holding a steady tempo.

For example, in 2/4, I often tap every (down) beat with my left toe and every other beat with my right toe. But in 2/4 I may also tap a quarter note with my left heel and two eighth notes with my right toe. Or, I may tap right toe, left toe, right heel, left heel. It varies with tempo and with the feel of the tune, and I often find myself doing more complex two-bar or four-bar patterns.

I don't seem to do as much tapping when I play the whistle--mostly either right toe or left heel, it seems. That's probably because I don't play anything on the whistle that's really fast or that has a heavy beat.

[talasiga]

......
i believe the others who voted for both feet, aren't realy sure.

Darling, believe me: I am a dancer and I sure know about feet.

[Wanderer]

I'm ambidextrous. I can move one hand in a clockwise circle while moving the other hand in a counter-clockwise circle. I can write forward and right-side-up with my right hand while simultaneously writing backward and upside down with my left. I can manage to tap with either foot

[talasiga]

.....I can move one hand in a clockwise circle while moving the other hand in a counter-clockwise circle. .......

[Wanderer]

.....I can move one hand in a clockwise circle while moving the other hand in a counter-clockwise circle. .......

If you point your index fingers towards each other, that's not nearly as easy as it sounds

[cowtime]

Darwin, I'm glad to hear that someone else does the heel-toe thing.

Some times I do that, usually on a very flowing tune, sometimes I just tap a toe(either one), sometimes I stomp. And, sometimes I don't do any of it, but move my body instead.
It just depends on the mood of the music.

One of the hardest things I had to get use to in drumming with a GHB band was the cold hard fact that ONLY the pipe major gets to tap.(I fudge a bit by moving my ankle with the beat.)

[lixnaw]

well i think you're all dodgy with your twisting and dancing

[talasiga]

well i think you're all dodgy with your twisting and dancing

Quit horsing around. I'd like to see you dance on one foot for long periods.

[LeeMarsh]

I alternate left foot, right foot, heel or toe. I usually do it when playing guitar and to re-enforce the rythmn to those sitting close by. I think it also lets more of me express what I'm playing. I alternate because if I only tapped the right toe for 4 hours, I'd tend to limp from tapping.

When I was young I had several music teachers who insisted that you not tap your feet. I don't remember exactly why. I think it had something to do with following the director, conductor, or some other instrument that set the rhythm. I know as a rhythm player (guitar or Bodhran), I am often tapping or stomping to help establish a consistency of beat amoungst the players. This contributes to the session, especially when one of the melody players tends to speed up the tune beyond what everyone else can handle; Brakes for the occasional visiting speed demon.

These are all the methodogical reasons for tapping or not tapping; however, I think the dominant reason I tap my foot is I'm not coordinated enough to dance and play at the same time. ... Okay, Okay, I'm not coordinated enough to dance with out falling down and doing so while playing leads to expensive instrument repair bills. When I get totally consumed by a tune, the feet, hands, eye brows, every thing start to move. Zan Mclead and I were sitting next to each other in a recent session and he too tends to tap/stomp. Unfortunately this lead to 4 pints taking nose dives from the table because our rhythm was level but the floor supporting the table wasn't. Just to clarify, this was not 4 pints at once, it was 4 pints over the evening. We'd dump one, clean it up, adjust the table, spend a couple tunes with nice gentle toe taps, then someone would let rip a reel and we'd dump the replacement pint. Since that night, when Zan's joins our session, we don't sit together, so our even rhythm is spread out evenly over the floor an not concentrated on just one side of the table. The pints still dance, but seem to be able to keep their balance on the table.

Tap, Stomp, Left, Right, both or not just ...

[lixnaw]

i just found out i was too quick of the mark sorry.
for me it depends on the instrument i play wich foot i use.
for the box it's my right and for whistles my left.

there's always something new to learn