Counting for Dummies

Getting started with the Haydn G-major violin concerto (first movement) tells me that I need to relearn how to count. Ms. L tells me to count it in eight, which makes sense, but the triplets and sextuplets trip me up. For now, I will probably just have to learn the rhythms by ear. Eventually, listening while following along (which you can do with the video above, which shows the solo and tutti parts) might help reteach me to count.

I ran into the same problem when I came back to my college orchestra after my junior year abroad.* The first piece we started working on at the start of my senior year was Bartók’s Dance Suite. Sightreading that? When you’ve forgotten how to count? Riiiight. I can’t get my hands on a part or score to confirm it, but I remember this piece as having all kinds of wacky time signatures. You might be counting in seven for a short bit, then four, then six, and on and on.** In every practice session, rehearsal and performance, my big toe tapped furiously inside my shoe as I did my best to stay on course. I came to love that piece, though (and just about anything by Bartók).

* I joined a student orchestra briefly in my study abroad city, but did not stick with it. Long story…anyway, when I returned to my home college for my senior year, I had not done much playing for the previous ten months beyond going through some scales a few times per month.   

** I did some searching online to try to verify this memory. I didn’t find exactly what I was looking for. But I did find a blog post (Nov. 3, 2011) by bassoonist Amy Harman of the Philharmonia Orchestra in which she recounted some very specific instructions from the Philharmonia’s Principal Conductor, Esa-Pekka Salonen, on the Dance Suite’s opening bassoon solo: “Esa-Pekka told me I should try and sound like 'the drunkest person at the bus stop.'”