How TF do people polyrhythm?

[Gone Fission]

Trying to get my head around playing the piano part in the National’s “Fake Empire” where the notes aren’t tricky but the rhythm is, at least to me. Left hand counts the measure in 3, right hand in four, with the one of each measure in sync.

Do people actually get left and right hands counting separately or is this a counting both in twelve thing? (That is, left on 1, 5, and 9 and right on 1, 4, 7, and 10.)

[Blackened Soul]

Not sure how they do it but.. a big part of it is started young.. sorry but that’s part of it… my mother was a keyboardist that had stared very young (granted they were a bit of a prodigy but they rebelled) and they could do shit as a joke that seeming improbable… so maybe… look to classical training pieces that focus on hand independency

[01010111]

You could try conducting a different time signature with each hand. Turn on a metronome and get comfortable doing that before trying to play a piece where they have different time signatures?

[backwardsvoyager]

My way of thinking on this is that since you're not necessarily playing every beat that's counted and you don't explicitly need to separate the rhythms by left/right hand (which probably helps for a lot of people but kind of limits the notes you end up playing), the whole concept of 'counting' is optional.

I like just improvising along to a polyrhythmic metronome until that particular combo starts to feel natural. Its like playing a single rhythm except you're drunk.

(Objectively terrible advice, but I did classical piano for years and realized I only find joy in playing when taking this kind of luddite approach. YMMV.)

[Kacey Y]

I have always taken the same approach to keys, drums, melodic percussion for drumline in school, or even singing and playing in different rhythms, as learning one part that's just divided up between hands/voices. Learning rudiments for percussion in school helped a lot with training that, mentally.

[Invisible Man]

Think of them as phrases, not as two separate rhythms.

Hot cup of tea - 3:2
Pass the goddamn butter - 4:3

Or start playing drums. God help you.

[dubkitty]

i’ve always dealt with that sort of thing by getting one rhythm integrated—usually the one with the longest bars—and then adding the other. i doubt that it comes out strictly correct, but it’s worked for me. certainly simpler on piano where it’s easier to see how things intersect.