Rhythm and beat on rhythm grids

Hello, my name's Mr. Pate. I'm looking forward to playing some great rhythms with you in today's lesson. This unit is called "Compose and Create: Notating and Performing Using Rhythm Grids." And today's lesson is all about rhythm and beat on rhythm grids. By the end of today's lesson, you'll be able to read and perform Ta and Ta-di rhythms using a rhythm grid. Here are some of the keywords that we'll be using in today's lesson. We'll be using rhythm grids, and these are visual systems to represent and perform rhythmic patterns, and we'll see all sorts of rhythm grids in today's lesson. We'll be performing to a pulse, and the pulse is the regular steady heartbeat of the music. The beat is the playing or the showing of the steady pulse, and it's a bit like the ticking of a clock. We'll be playing rhythms, and rhythms are patterns of sounds and silences that we play and sing. And finally, we'll be using notation, which is a way of writing music down. We'll be covering all these words in today's lesson. Before we start our lesson, though, it is time for a warmup. Before every music lesson, it's important to warm up our minds and bodies, so that we're ready to make music together. And rhythm and pulse warmups can help to develop our sense of timing when we play music together. Warming up with movement helps us to feel that pulse, which is such an important thing when we're playing rhythms together. Here's a rhythm and pulse warmup. First we're gonna chant one to eight to a steady pulse like this. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Try chanting with me. Ready, steady, off we go. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Excellent. Well done. Now we're gonna repeat it four times in a row. Let's give it a try. Ready, steady, off we go. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Fantastic! Now let's add a bit of extra challenge. I'd like you to replace one of the numbers with some body percussion or an action. For example, I might replace the number two with a clap. Then each time I chant it, I'm gonna replace the two with a clap like this. 1, (claps) 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8. Jacob says that when his group was doing this, they got to one clap, stomp, click, five, six, jump, tap, and still manage to stay in time with a steady pulse. Very impressive. Pause this video now and try chanting the numbers one to eight, first, replacing just one number with a body percussion or action, and then trying it a few more times, each time adding a new action to replace one of the numbers. How far will you get? Will you get as far as Jacob? Good luck! Hopefully you are now feeling nice and warmed up. Let's have a look at the learning cycles for today's lesson. We are going to start off by decoding symbols on a rhythm grid. Then, we're gonna look at the Ta and the Ta-di rhythms written out on a rhythm grid. Let's start by looking at decoding symbols. So rhythm grids use symbols to notate rhythms, and notate just means to write down. When we know the code for these rhythm grids, we can read and perform them. And we can see some examples here. The purple circle, for example, might represent a stomp and the heart might represent a clap. Here's an example of a rhythm grid using that purple circle to represent a stomp. This rhythm grid has seven beats, so it's gonna be counting seven four times in a row. Have a look at the grid. On which numbers do you think there's gonna be a stomp? Let's watch a video showing this rhythm being performed. Ready, steady, off we go. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Now we've seen this rhythm being performed, let's have a go at performing it ourselves. I'm gonna chant the numbers and I'd like you to join in with your stomps, making sure you look really carefully at which numbers you're gonna add the stomp on. I'm gonna say "Ready, steady, off we go" to get started, and then I'm gonna chant the numbers one to seven four times in a row. Join in with your stomps. Here we go. Ready, steady, off we go. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Great. How did you do? Let's try another rhythm. This one is also gonna have seven beats and it's gonna use the green triangle to represent a tap on your side. Have a look at the rhythm grid. Which numbers do you think are gonna be replaced by that tap? Let's watch a video of this rhythm being performed. Ready, steady, off we go 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Now he's seen the rhythm being performed, try tapping it along with me. I'm gonna chant the numbers one to seven, and I'd like you to tap whenever you see the green triangle. Watch out because number one is blank. So after my "Ready, steady, off we go," the first beat you won't be tapping for. Ready? Let's give it a try. Ready, steady, off we go. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Excellent! We are getting really good at decoding symbols on a rhythm grid. Let's try it again with another rhythm. This rhythm also has seven beats and it uses the blue heart to represent the rhythm. I'm gonna play you two clips and I'd like you to try and guess, which one of these clips do you think is the rhythm that we can see written down on the screen? Is it A or is it B? Listen carefully and follow along with the rhythm you can see. First, let's listen to A. Ready, steady, off we go. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. So that was rhythm A. Let's have A listen to rhythm B. Ready, steady, off we go. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. So what do you think? Is it rhythm A or rhythm B? The answer is A. Let's have a look at another rhythm grid. This one uses the pink diamond to represent a tap on your chest. Have a look at the grid and think, which numbers am I gonna be tapping on. Let's watch a video showing what this rhythm will sound like. Ready, steady, off we go. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. Now you've seen what this rhythm will sound like, try tapping it along with me. I'm gonna count you in with "Ready, steady, off we go," then count to seven four times in a row and I'd let you to tap along with the correct numbers. Here we go. Ready, steady, off we go. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7. So we've used lots of rhythm grids there to play rhythms, but what is a rhythm grid? Is it A, a stave on which melodies can be notated? Is it B, the regular steady heartbeats of the music? Is it C, a visual grid system to represent and perform rhythmic patterns? Or is it D, the pattern of sounds and silences that we play and sing? What is a rhythm grid? The answer is C. A rhythm grid is a visual grid system to represent and perform rhythmic patterns. Now it's over to you to make up some rhythm grids for yourself. You're gonna work with a partner and you're going to choose two types of body percussion or you could use two percussion instruments. In Aisha's group, they chose a stomp and a tongue click, whereas Laura's group had some percussion instruments and they chose to play the stomp on the drum and the click on the claves. It's up to you. When you've chosen your body percussion sounds or your percussion instruments, you are then gonna decide on what symbols and/or colors are going to represent these on your rhythm grid. Aisha chose to draw a lovely sun to represent the tongue click sound, and Laura decided to do a swirl to represent the stomp. You are then gonna practice a rhythmic pattern, and when you are happy with how it sounds, you are gonna write these symbols down on your rhythm grid. We can see an example here. We can see two rhythm grids, one for the click sound represented by the sun, and one for the stomp sound represented by the swirl. Laura's had some clever ideas when putting this rhythm together. In Laura's group, they chose a pattern that would hear both sounds on their own, so sometimes just the stomp, sometimes just the click. Sometimes it would hear them happening at the same time, like on beat two, you've got a stomp and a click together. And on beat three there's a rest where neither sound are playing. That adds a good amount of variety. So there's an example of what yours might look like. Here is a blank rhythm grid that you can use to write on to compose your own rhythm. Pause the video now. Come up with your sounds, your symbols, and compose your rhythms, and then practice playing it with your group. Good luck! Now you've had some time composing and then playing your rhythm, how did it go? Were you able to agree with your partner on choosing two sounds and deciding when they would be played? Were you able to stay in time with the beat when you were playing? If you went wrong, were you able to spot your mistake and practice in order to improve your performance? Now, let's have a look at Ta and Ta-di on a rhythm grid. So far we've shown just one sound or silence in each box of the rhythm grid, and this means we've played only on the beat using that steady pulse and playing our sounds on the beat. We call the beat Ta, and here's an example of how we can notate that on a rhythm grid. Here's something we are familiar with on the top, it's a four-beat rhythm with a green triangle representing the sound and would sound like this. Ready, steady, off we go. 1, 2, 3, 4. (hands clapping) Now we could notate that using different symbols. Have a look at the version below. The symbol for Ta has replaced the green triangles and the Z symbol in beats one and four represents a rest or a one-beat silence. So the rhythm grid at the top of the screen sounds exactly the same as the one at the bottom of the screen. But what would we do here? This rhythm grid shows more than one sound on every beat. So in beat one there are two green triangles. How would we play this? Well, we would use two sounds in the space of one beat, and we want them to be nice and evenly spaced, so that they all take up exactly the same amount of time within the beat. This pattern would sound like this, ready, steady, off we go. 1, 2, 3, 4. (hands clapping) So you can hear those sounds, two per beat, evenly spaced. We could write this out like this. This symbol represents two sounds per beat and we call that symbol Ta-di. The Ta falls on the beat and the Di is halfway through. So if I clap this rhythm for you again, I'm gonna chant the sound Ta-di, so you can see how that represents the Ta on the beat and the Di halfway through. Let's try it. Ready, steady, off we go. Ta-di, Ta-di, Ta-di, Ta-di. (hands clapping) Using Ta-di can help us make sure that the sounds are nice and even and the beat is split equally. Let's talk for a moment about pulse and beat, some of the words we've used in today's lesson. A pulse, or a regular beat is part of being a human being and it's present in lots of things that we experience, like when we walk and our feet regularly hit that pavement, when we breathe to a nice regular pattern, and in the constant regular beating of our hearts. Pulse, beat and rhythm though are not the same thing. Let's watch some performances. While you are watching these, I'd like you to notice the addition of the steady beat against the rhythms in the second recording. Here's the first recording. (students drumming) (students drumming) And now here's the second. Look out for the addition of the steady beat against these rhythms. (students drumming) Hopefully that's given you a little bit of an idea of what the difference between a beat and a rhythm might be. So Lucas tells us that the pulse is the regular steady heartbeat of the music that pulses regularly, just like our heart. Jun says, that rhythm is then the patterns of sounds and silences that we play and sing on top. So what do you think is the difference between pulse, beat and rhythm? Pause the video now and discuss this with your partner. How did you do? Maybe your explanation sounded a little bit like this. Let's listen to a professional percussionist, Elsa, telling us about the difference between pulse and beat and rhythm. Rhythm and pulse are two different things, but they are completely and utterly reliant on each other. A rhythm can be anything, it can be a pattern, and we can use words and counting to create rhythms. However, we need to know what the pulse is, and the pulse is like the musical heartbeat. So you can have lots of different musicians playing at the same time. They can be playing different rhythms, but they need to be sharing the same heartbeat. I'm gonna demo this. So here's my heartbeat hand. I'm gonna play it on this bongo, (Elsa drumming) and with this hand I'm gonna play a rhythm, any pattern that I want that fits in time with the heart beat. (Elsa drumming) Let's have a look at another rhythm grid. On this rhythm grid, you can see that sometimes there are two sounds in a square and sometimes there's just one. We're going to use the thigh pat sound for this triangle, and I'd like you to, as you work out what this rhythm will sound like, chart Ta-di for when you've got two sounds in one beat and Ta for those single sounds to help you stay in time. Pause the video now and try chanting this rhythm. What would it sound like? Now you've had a go. Let's check. Did yours sound like this? Ready, steady, off we go. ♪ Ta-di Ta, Ta-di Ta ♪ Let's try it again with another rhythm. This time the blue heart is gonna represent a clap. Again, when there's one in each beat, you're gonna use Ta, and when there's two in a beat, you're going to use Ta-di. Pause the video and try clapping and chanting this rhythm. Let's see how you did. Did your clapping and chanting sound like this? Ready, steady, off we go. ♪ Ta Ta-di Ta-di Ta ♪ Let's try again with another rhythm. For this one, the pink diamond will represent a chest pat sound. Again, we've got Ta, which is one sound per beat and Ta-di with two sounds per beat. A good technique for showing a rest, because this rhythm also has a rest or a blank space in it. And a good technique for that is to open your arms to show the rest, which will help you make sure you give enough time for that rest to stay in time with the pulse. Pause the video now and try performing this rhythm. How did you do? Did your performance sound a bit like this? Ready, steady, off we go. Ta-di Ta, (puffs) Ta. We've performed a lot of rhythm grids there using Ta and Ta-di sounds. Let's see if we can hear the difference between what different rhythm grids might sound like. You're going to hear a clip of a rhythm being performed and I'd like you to see if you can guess which of these rhythm grids are you hearing. Is it A, B, or C? Listen to this rhythm. Ready, steady, off we go. (light rhythmic music) So what do you think? Which of these rhythms was being performed? A, B, or C? The answer is B. "Did you hear that the third beat had a rest?" says Sam. That was our big clue for working out that the rhythm was B. Now let's try building up a more complex rhythmic performance using different layers of rhythms. We're gonna introduce the layer one at a time, building the texture and creating a body percussion piece with three different ostinati. And what that means is a repeating musical pattern. You are gonna hear a backing track, which you can perform alongside to help you feel that steady pulse. Before you perform, we'll see a video showing what your final performance might look like. Listen out for the thigh pat pattern happening twice before the clap comes in. The clap then gonna happen twice before the chest pat pattern enters, and you're gonna then when they're all in, continue each part repeating them over and over again, until the backing track finishes. Here are the rhythms that you'll be using to create this performance. Let's watch a video showing what your performance might look like. (metronome ticking) (light rhythmic music) (instructor tapping) (instructor clapping) (light rhythmic music continues) Now he's seen a video of what your performance might look like, it's over to you. Pause the video and have a practice. Then when you are ready, resume to try playing along with a backing track. Okay, hopefully you've had a bit of a practice. Let's try playing this rhythm along with a backing track. Wait for the counting, and remember, you are starting with just your thigh pat and then gradually building in the other parts. Here we go. (metronome ticking) (light rhythmic music) (light rhythmic music continues) (light rhythmic music continues) (light rhythmic music continues) How did you perform as an ensemble? In Jun's group, they felt the pulse to keep them all in time together. In Izzy's group, they followed the rhythm grid carefully to do the correct action. In Sam's group, they understood how the rhythm fitted to the beat. How did you do? In today's lesson, we've learned that a rhythm grid is a visual grid system to represent and perform rhythmic patterns. We've learned that rhythm grids can be displayed in lots of different ways. You just need to know the code in order to be able to play them. We've learned that we can use visual symbols like colors or shapes or numbers to represent musical information, and we've learned that to play together in an ensemble, you need to have a good sense of pulse and to know when it's your turn to play. Great rhythmic playing in today's lesson. I look forward to seeing you again in the next one!.