The Backstory
According to Nancy Zeltsman, the backstory on The Boston Conservatory’s new “Time and Rhythm” course goes back a few years. In discussions among Music Division Chairs a few years ago, the faculty unanimously acknowledged a need for more training in Time and Rhythm. Division members thought that a class of that nature would improve rehearsals for large ensembles and chamber music and that the performance level-in general-would improve if students were more trained in the specifics of Time and Rhythm.
She adds that this is a problem that crosses various institutions. “I think it’s everywhere, Zeltsman explains. “I’ve taught at The Boston Conservatory and Berklee College of Music for nearly 20 years, and privately prior to that. I’ve had the opportunity to teach internationally quite a bit. The issue of young musicians lacking a steady sense of pulse, and not being well versed in subdivisions of beats, or the implications of meter, etc. is everywhere.”
Zeltsman notes that when reviewing her own background, trying to spot the difference, she realized she was lucky enough to have teachers who drilled those concepts consistently and constantly. “You might think that all percussionists at least-among other instrumentalists-have been drilled on these. But they’re not.” Acknowledging that Time/Rhythm is incredibly challenging to teach, she believes that skill is “glossed over” in a lot of early musical training.
At The Boston Conservatory, that discussion was followed by a curriculum review that was conservatory-wide. After a Time/Rhythm class was suggested, Zeltsman mentioned a rhythm course that percussionist Jamey Haddad was teaching at Cleveland Institute of Music to all incoming freshmen. When Keith Aleo-whose accomplishments crossed the Florida Philharmonic, the Miami Chamber Symphony, the New Percussion Quarter, and various solo recitals-was approached, he submitted an outstanding syllabus, and the “heavy lifting” to get the course off the ground was assisted by Andy Vores, Chair of Composition and Theory, and the Director of the Music Division, Karl Paulnack. She adds, “It was a huge achievement to introduce a new required course into the curriculum.”
Just this past semester, Keith taught five sections of the new Time and Rhythm to all incoming freshman Music and Dance majors. With this addition, Zeltsman adds, they achieved another goal intended by their carefully planned curricular changes: fostering deep connections between the divisions of Theater, Dance, and Music. Zeltsman says, “Keith’s proclivities toward both orchestral percussion playing, as well as more experimental contemporary chamber playing, exemplify the openness of The Boston Conservatory’s Percussion program.”
Though he’d originally questioned if students would lack some of these basic skills, Aleo realized quickly that there were gaps in knowledge that he could help fill. He asked himself why students were struggling and realized it must be that rhythm wasn’t being addressed in a way the students could connect to, so Aleo focused on helping students recognize what they already possess. Using world rhythms and varied instruments, he is able to show how those world influences affect all music. That way, he also connects rhythm to pulses and beats that every performer can find internally-whether they are vocalists, musicians, or dancers.
Aleo explains, “You can’t teach someone good rhythm, but everyone has good rhythm already.” His job is about helping them find that innate beat and developing a way to “connect with their own rhythm.” He notes, “We all think of rhythm as sound, but rhythm is sound and space-the space between the notes.” In one early class exercise, for example, he plays four notes and asks students to listen for the four pulses of silence-then they have to clap when they should come back in on the beat. That one exercise alone can take 45 minutes.
Delighted to have helped provide this opportunity for their freshmen, Composition Chair and colleague Andy Vores adds that Keith’s course is “going to radically improve our students’ ability to handle complex ensemble issues and tricky subdivisions and syncopations with assurance and real musicianship.” Zeltsman adds, “We strive to be a department in which the students gain a broad background, while also being encouraged to explore individualism.”
Both of Aleo’s colleagues also stress the fun students are having, though they are making huge strides academically at the same time. Vores states, “I’ve been to the classes and they are high energy, spirited, and colorful-even the fact that these dancers, instrumentalists, composers, and singers are moving their bodies together has a profound effect upon the learning experience. It’s very exciting to see some of these transformations already and as with all good teaching, of course, while it’s in process the students hardly even recognize how very far they’ve come in only a few short weeks.” Zelsnick adds that the students “adore Keith’s energy and his ability to be both tough on them and extremely sensitive to difficulties they may be having.”
The Class
Classical musician Christian Hoschek speaks to the initial shock of walking into a BoCo classroom where they were “listening to something with a really great groove like Bill Withers.” After students get past what Christian calls the “Why are we playing that at Conservatory?” moment, they are led to dissect the rhythm and consider what is between those beats.
Camille Sherman also speaks to the initial hesitance she felt when she first entered the class-she didn’t know what to expect, but she assumed it would focus on learning to read and perform complex rhythms. “It was not at all like that,” she reports, “and he became one of my favorite teachers in the first five minutes of class.” She was also initially surprised by the music-Funk, Bluegrass, Jazz-but she quickly learned to appreciate those differences. “This is real music,” she adds.
The goal of the class is to “integrate that pulse,” and Christian acknowledges that even trained musicians can “be totally off about that pulse.” He talks of how some musicians, when they are focused on the “rigid, robotic, awkward way of counting 1-2-3-4,” forget that pulse. When nerves are mixed with that robotic stance, the result is unfortunate. Aleo’s class helps them feel that pulse with their bodies so the result is what Christian calls “music breaths.”
“He’s not a typical teacher,” vocalist Camille Sherman adds of Aleo. “It’s all interactive, so there’s never a lecture-never an opportunity to space out.” She also speaks to the pulses Christian described, suggesting this is an “inner clock” that every musician must have, which is why she was so grateful that BoCo designed this class; she echoes the idea that the class focuses on students being reminded “to put music in our bodies.” For Camille, as a Vocalist and a musician from a family of musicians, she had always approached music from “an analytical, theory-based perspective,” and Aleo’s class reminded her that “music is all about a feeling.”
Camille notes that this class has helped her recognize that she feels music in her voice and her breath, but in sharing this class with other performers who encounter music differently, she learns from those moments. She realizes that she thinks of music vocally as “I have this amount of time to go from this note to that note,” but she has learned to appreciate how dancers hear the same music and think “I have this amount of time to go from this movement to that movement.” She explains that musicians all need this internal clock in order to collaborate with other artists, and she notes how no other class has ever really shown that all performers-whether a classical musician, percussionist, dancer, or vocalist-have “music in them” and allowed them to really understand “how this works.”
The class, in focusing on the emotions of a piece or the intensity of a piece, has allowed her to “take a step back and be reminded how music should feel.” Though she had always appreciated music, she says the class “makes music feel good again.”
Katharina Shier, a dancer, adds that Aleo’s class has been her “first opportunity to understand music more.” She always looks forward to the Time and Rhythm class because “Aleo has a wonderful way of engaging his students in a respectful and relatable manner.”
“He stresses that rhythm is something internal that we all possess and that he cannot teach us but can only help us rediscover within ourselves.” Katharina reflects on her first day in class, remembering how Aleo asked them where they experience external and internal rhythms in daily lives. Katharina adds, “Professor Aleo is able to relate rhythm to us as a natural part of life and something that we must feel internally.”
She particularly appreciates Aleo’s class as a dancer, adding, “Although time and rhythm plays a large role in dance, these are things that are not addressed individually in a dance class setting.” She believes that in the Time and Rhythm class she-like her fellow dancers-is offered a chance outside of dance classes “to explore and better understand time and rhythm in a safe and constructive environment.”
Katharina also notes that Aleo makes the concept of the class-ideas that “may be daunting to some students who do not major in music”- something relatable to all of them. “From the very beginning,” she states, “I was given the feeling that I was going to be able to achieve a better sense of rhythm and that has proven to be true.”
The Students
Christian: The Classical Musician
Christian Hoschek is a viola performance major who realized the Time and Rhythm class most helped him in terms of “expanding his focus.” Because most Classical musicians focus on primarily classical music, there is not often a chance to learn different types of genres, which he views as a problem. Christian states, “There’s a lot of diversity in music and a lot of need for diversity.” He explains that a true musician “can’t only play orchestra and symphony stuff,” and he appreciates how Aleo’s class “blurs that line of classical/symphony from other music.”
In studying music from Africa and Latin America, Christian has learned how music has blended and transformed; he notes of Aleo’s course, “In a way, it’s sort of a History class.” Noting the history and diversity in the culture of music, he explains, “Without it-what is music? It’s just a bunch of notes.”
As a classical violist, Christian is currently thinking of various graduate programs that will help him after he receives his Music degree. He hopes for an orchestra job, so he’s grateful to be in a community at BoCo filled with so many ambitious and driven people. “I picked up on that drive,” Christian says, and he now wants to be a professional musician. He also explains how he’s received help from another BoCo teacher Leonard Matchzynski and from the SPHINX competition, part of an organization founded by Aaron P. Dworkin, a musician who wants to work past cultural stereotypes traditionally assigned to classical musicians and encourage young Latino and African American to become classical musicians.
Christian’s mother, in particular, has supported her son’s musical aspirations. “Mom went to college because she wanted to give me the gift of music-she worked to make sure I could pursue what I wanted to.” He wants to carry that gift to others, and sharing music is the way to achieve that. Because Christian sees music as the “total manifestation of emotion,” he also sees music as a door to improving lives. “I want to make a change-and help people.”
Camille: The Vocalist
Camille comes from a family of musicians, and her twin sister-Emily-is also a musician. Because she notes that her family is “Jazz Based,” she almost went to Berklee, which is in fact where Emily landed. Their father went to Berklee as well, and her mother, grandmother, and greatgrandmother are all professional singers. She says that though her dream job has changed many times over the years, she has known from the time she was little that she would do something with music. She mentions that she imagines perhaps being on Broadway-a classically trained vocalist who can sing opera but shares that on Broadway stages.
Because the family couldn’t quite stretch the budget to send both girls to Berklee at the same time, the family decided Emily would go to Berklee that year for alto-saxophone performance, and Camille took a year in community college to save her family money and plan her next step. Glad for that year to consider her options, she definitely feels she landed “in the right spot” at BoCo, and she notes that because of the connections she is making there, and the professionals who are inspiring her, she knows she “could end up on Broadway or could end up at the Met.”
Though the girls are having a difficult time being apart, she shares that she’s at all of Emily’s recitals, and Emily is at all of her shows. Though she says “missing a twin is like missing a part of yourself,” she does know they are both exactly where they need to be.
Una: The Percussionist
Una Cheng is from Taiwan and has studied in the US for five years, in California and later Massachusetts. She wanted to study with Boston Conservatory faculty, so she transferred to Boston her senior year in order to familiarize herself with the environment. “My parents knew that this is one of the top choices for me, so they really support me mentally and financially,” she adds. She says that it was difficult financially at first, so much so that
