How to play rubato

 Time  is concept  that is often debated among musicians especially, depending on the genre of music. For example, if you ask a classical musician to swing, you typically get the same response as if ask a rock musician to play rubato. Sadly this response can often be confusion and righteous indignation, which never bodes well for accomplishing a moving performance. The frames of reference just don’t line up for either of them. This is really entirely unnecessary and by the end of this two part article hopefully you will have a better idea of the two styles. For this article “time” will be defined as the sense of overall forward motion in a piece of music.

This being the case I would like to offer a definition of two kinds of time.  These terms are not official textbook terms but for purposes of demonstration I think they will help to clarify the meanings.  The two styles are momentum-based time and structure-based time.

In this first article, I will discuss momentum-based time. The style I will refer to as momentum-based time, is most often used in classical music and musical theatre. The idea behind momentum based time is that the sense of time is only relative to itself, and what has come before it.

What this means essentially is that two quarter notes will not necessarily be as long as each other at the same tempo. One may be slightly faster or slower depending on its placement in the phrase (and style of music).

Typically momentum based time is going to be based off of the harmonic progression and the performers interpretation of it. Which means that if you know what the harmonies are you can more easily predict what the pace of the line will be. In regards to how quickly the line will move through some progressions and how much it will slow through other progressions.

The other characteristic is that it can be texture based. What this means is that loud multi-voiced textures physically take longer for the sound to be produced then soft single voiced textures do, so sometimes extra time is allowed for that. Its also known as allowing the music to breathe

The way to follow this style of music is by following the harmony and the shape of the phrase. If you try to count metronomically throughout you will most certainly become confused.

So hopefully the next time you see or hear the word rubato you will have a better idea of what to do with it. This style can often be baffling for non-classical musicians because it seems to be arbitrary. However, when done well,  it makes perfect musical sense, and is very easy to follow,…once you understand the rules behind it. When done wrong though…well then yes…  sadly, it is entirely arbitrary.