Tip on reading musical rhythms.
When I was first learning to read music, I found that using words was an easy way to understand rhythmic figures. I had no idea at the time that this was common knowledge. Go figure.
https://i3.ytimg.com/vi/Z8gYpvlfGTM/default.jpg = 'Everyone.' http://exchangedownloads.smarttech.c...small/0001.png = 'My Mother.' http://www.drumscore.com/images/Less...ers4joined.jpg = 'Mississippi.' Later on when I began teaching reading music to kids - as well as adults - everyone found this way of learning to be quite fun. :D |
Thanks, Toby! I’d never heard it explained like that.
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This reminds me of many, many children's violin recitals I've attended where the first performers were toddlers whose recital piece is called "Mississippi Hotdog."
The piece consists of a rhythm you probably can figure out from the title, played entirely on the open A string. :D |
Interesting to me that this works in English because English is a stress-timed language. Many languages are syllable-timed and it wouldn't work the same way in those.
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Great stuff, Toby!
I can still hear my grade school band director shouting "Mississippi down up" for a beat of sixteenths followed by a beat of eighth notes. When we got that down he changed it to "one-e-and-a-two-e-and-a" for sixteenths so we were also saying (actually thinking as most played wind instruments) which beat of the measure was being played. I have him to thank for my foot stomping habit, as well. I didn't develop the head bob until taking up the guitar :) Mr. Albert didn't use Everyone and My Mother, but I'm sure he would have approved! |
This would make a fun game to come up with phrases for all kinds of common rhythm lines. It could be its own website or app. :) I've been learning to read music and rhythm is certainly the hardest part.
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Thanks Toby- that works for me!
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Quote:
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I still remember my first trumpet teacher introducing triplets by having me say "straw-ber-ry" to myself as I played the rhythm.
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This is cute too!
https://songwriterstipjar.files.word...06/rhythms.jpg |
And examples for dotted notes and triplets are ...
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Triplets: pineapple, pineapple, run pony, run pony, popsicle, popsicle. . . .
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For some reason I kept looking for baby back (ribs) in that chart . . .
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That's fun Toby. That's a great way to explain it. I've been reading music so long that for those types of markings I wouldn't need syllables. But where syllables come in handy is when you come across a weird rhythm marking that you have to fit into the a given time space. As an example, imagine going along with straight 4/16ths notation and then the composer throws in one beat of 5/16ths where you have to throw an extra note into the same space as the previous beat where there only 4 notes in that beat. Now THAT requires a syllable :).
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