Posted by Engineer rhythm on March 21, 2002 at 10:31:10:
In Reply to: Re: Musical disorders posted by Jay Bertolet on March 20, 2002 at 23:21:11:
I'm an engineer, but my music degree was at the usual age, the BSEE when I was almost 40. (We won't talk about how old I am now.) I've done a lot of teaching of various instruments, and no matter where I go, when I run into an adult amateur who wants lessons, I find an incapacity to play rhythmically. So far, all the affected students have been men, but I don't think I've taught very many women amateurs (they just haven't come for lessons.)
What seems to happen is that they have an inability to multi-task. That is, they can concentrate on getting the notes right, but then the rhythm doesn't exist, or exists in hyperspace somewhere. They have awful problems playing in ensembles for the same reason...they are not aware of what is going on around them. It is a tremendous battle to get them to let go of "the notes" and open up their awareness. I had one 58 year old engineer student, who, if I told him he was playing the rhythm wrong, would reply stoutly "No I'm not." Then, after maybe a 20 minutes' struggle to get him to do it correctly, he would say "That's exactly what I was doing before."
Now, I don't know if they had studied music as a kid like I did, if they would have this problem or not. But it's hell on wheels to try to fix it for an adult, even an extremely motivated adult (of which I've seen a couple, including the above stubborn one.)
Mary Ann