1. Find the Beat, Feel the Rhythm
Chapter 4
Find the Beat,
Feel the Rhythm

2. Time in Music
What happens at any given moment in music depends on four fundamentals
Beat – steady, recurring pulse
Rhythm – pace of music through time
Accent – emphasis on musical sound
Meter – duple or triple groups of beats; accent on first beat; creates measures

3. Coordination in Music Keeping more than one rhythm going at one time
One or more complex rhythms performed while keeping beat
Piano, organ, drum set, etc.

4. Metrical Patterns and Melodic Rhythms
Mixing meters
Humans commonly seek patterns in numbers and music
Combine two or more meters to create interesting rhythmic organization
Melodic Rhythm
Distinctive rhythm pattern
Can sense melody without the element of pitch

5. Ludwig van Beethoven Born in 1770 in Germany to poor family
Began to study violin and piano at age 4
First self-employed composer
Three distinct style periods
Became totally deaf in 1815

6. Rhythms in Everyday Life
Found instruments – ordinary objects used as instruments
STOMP
Modern dance troupe famous for its use of found instruments
Experience music in a different way from unexpected places

7. Improvisation Musician makes up music as he performs
Simultaneous composer and performer
Done within musical boundaries
i.e., Elaborate on familiar melody
Key feature in jazz
Direct form of self-expression
Take chances
Think ahead in the music
Among highest forms of human thinking

8. Rhythms in the Music of the Bamileke
Cameroon, a republic in Africa
Lali (warrior) dance of the Bamileke people
Performed only by males
Preparation and celebration
Ability/skill in in battle, confidence, and manliness; tribal unity and pride

9. Syncopation Shifting accents “off the beat”
Accents occur on weaker beats or in between beats
Interruption of steady beat to create unexpected imbalance
Ragtime– American syncopated music style
Popular in early 20th century
Amatuer musicians could buy sheet music
Scott Joplin, Jelly Roll Morton, and Eubie Blake
Syncopated melody over steady beat in bass

10. Scott Joplin Born in Texas in 1868 Taught himself to play piano
Published first collection of rags in 1899
Ragtime and Joplin fell out of favor before WWI, but rediscovered in 1970s
Works considered American classics

11. Creative Rythms
Successful long-running dance and drumming acts (STOMP, Blast, Bring in Da Noise)
Unusual sounds, creative rhythms, imaginative showmanship
Blue Man Group
Humor and unusual instruments
(barrels, pipes, etc.)
Several troupes in locations around the world
Use of complex subdivisions of the beat

12. Vocabulary Accent – the emphasis placed on musical sound
Meter – aural aspect of music in which a certain number of beats are grouped together
Measure – the division of beats into defined groups separated by a bar line
Improvisation – spontaneous musical invention
Ostinato – a repeated musical figure
Syncopation – deliberate shifts of accent so that it conflicts with the steady beat