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Hello, and welcome to your music lesson today.

My name is Miss Al-Hanoush and today we're going to be looking at how we can develop our rhythms. So without further ado, let's get warmed up.

For today's warm up we are going to play a game called Switch and Switch is brilliant for helping you maintain a part, for playing in time with others and for your coordination.

So here is our rhythm pattern number one.

Copy me.

Head, shoulders, clap.

Nice and easy, the first one.

Here's our rhythm pattern number two.

Copy me.

Head, shoulders, knees, clap.

Again, quite simple rhythm.

Here is our rhythm pattern number three.

Copy me.

Head shoulders, knees, toes, clap.

Okay, that one takes a little bit more movement.

So we have three rhythm patterns.

What we're going to do with these is build them each up.

So I am going to play rhythm pattern number two, head, shoulders, knees, clap.

I'm going to keep repeating that pattern whilst you play either rhythm pattern number one, head, shoulders, clap, or rhythm pattern number three, head shoulders, knees, toes, clap.

What will happen is that very quickly we start at the same point, but very quickly, our rhythms will become out of sync with each other because with the first rhythm is three beats.

The second rhythm is four beats.

And the third rhythm is five beats.

So let us try that first.

I'm going to play rhythm number two.

You have the choice over the number one or rhythm number three.

If you have another person in your household, they can play the other rhythm.

You can decide that between you.

Let's try and play those rhythms in time with each other.

I'm going to put a pulse on and I'm going to give you a count in.

Here we go.

One, two, three, four.

Heads, shoulders, knees, clap.

It's quite easy the first time, isn't it? This time I'm going to let's say the word switch.

If I say the word switch at any point, you need to start playing backwards.

So what I mean is if I'm playing my rhythm number one, head, sorry rhythm number two, head, shoulders, knees, clap.

If I say switch at this point, I would need to go knees, shoulders, head, clap.

I'll show you another example.

Here we go.

This is my example.

One two three four.

Head, shoulders, knees, clap, switch.

Knees, shoulders, head, clap.

Knees, shoulders, head, clap, switch.

Head, shoulders, knees, clap, and so on.

Let's see if we can try that together.

You can change your rhythm if you want to now.

If you find these easy, you can make your own body rhythm pattern up and see if you can then switch that one when I say the word switch.

See if you can play with another household member too.

Here we go, I'll give you your count in.

One, two, three four.

Head, shoulders, knees, clap, heads, shoulders, knees, clap.

heads, shoulders, knees, clap.

heads, shoulders, knees, clap, switch.

Knees, shoulders, head, clap.

Knees, shoulders, head, clap, switch.

heads, shoulders, knees, clap.

heads, shoulders, knees, clap, switch.

Knees, shoulders, head, clap.

Knees, shoulders, head, clap, Knees, shoulders, head, and stop.

Well done, if you got that in time.

So you can play that with your family and your friends.

You can go a little bit faster as well and see how good you can get your coordination.

Let's head back to the lesson and see what we're learning today.

In this lesson you will need a piece of paper, a pencil, and your body.

If you don't have any of those items with you, now's your chance to go and get them, pause the video and then resume when you're ready.

It's also a good opportunity to find somewhere quiet to work and make sure that any apps or notifications are turned off on any electronic devices.

Do that now pause the video and resume when ready.

Here's our agenda for today's lesson.

We're going to start by revisiting some rhythm notation, and then we're going to be learning how to write dotted notes.

We're then going to be exploring ways to develop rhythmic ideas and compose a varied rhythmic piece and finally, perform our own compositions.

So here we go.

So for our first learning objective, we're going to revisit reading some rhythm notation.

Now, if you're panicking and you're not sure.

I'm going to recap it for you, but some of you might have seen what's on screen already.

If you did my lesson one from unit one, you'll remember your crotchets and quavers and if you did unit one lesson 11, you'll remember that we learned semi breves, minims, and semiquavers.

So I'm going to recap those briefly for you just in case.

So to start with, we've got a time signature that tells us how many beats are in our bar.

And here it tells us we've got four, four crotchet beats in our bar.

So a bar is worth four beats.

If we added all of these notes up, it would become four beats and we draw a bar line.

Again, four beats, and we draw our bar line.

Again, four beats and our bar line.

Bar lines make our music so much easier to read.

So we've got a four beat note, which is called a semi breve.

We have a two beat note, which is a minim.

We have a one beat note, which is a crotchet.

We have a half beat note, which is a quaver and here we've got two quavers joined up.

It makes it easier to read if we join their tails together.

And finally we've got semiquavers, which are our quarter notes.

And again, like quavers, we join their tails together to make it easier to read.

So can you clap through this rhythm? Let's have a go after four.

One, two, three, four.

It's quite hard isn't it to hear that minim and semi breve so this time, can you invent a movement or a vocal sounds to make sure that you're playing that for the correct note then? So for example, for a minim counting of two, I could do whistle.

So one, two, three, four.

For a semi breve I could do a different pitched whistle.

So one, two, three, four, And you can do that within your performance.

Have a go on your own now.

Do this performance as many times as you like until you have internalised these notes, then continue with the video.

So we have now revisited reading rhythm notation, and you're confident on your semi breves, your crotchets, your quavers, your minims and your semiquavers.

We're now going to learn how to write down dotted notes.

Have a look on the screen.

What can you see that you might not have seen before? That's right.

There's a dot next to our minim.

So that dot is not a mistake.

That dot is there on purpose.

We call this a dotted note and this note in particular is a dotted minim.

It's worth three beats.

Do you know why? So a dot next to a note in music adds half the value of that note to the original value of the note.

So for example, a minim is worth two beats, and we add half of the value of that minim which is that's right, one.

So two plus one gives us three beats.

You can see that at the bottom here where I've drawn our minim value is of two beats, and then our dot value is one beat, which equals three beats.

So how would you play this rhythm now? Have a go on your own.

Let's have a go after four together.

One, two, three, four.

One two three, one two three four.

If you want to put in your body percussion, or if you want to slide on that dotted minim and actually feel that note and how long it is, feel free to do so.

Here's our next dotted note.

Can you guess what dotted note this is? This here is a semi breve and a semi breve, a dotted semi breve is worth six beats.

So we've got our semi breve plus the dot.

So how have I worked out that it's six beats? That's right a semi breve is worth four, plus half the value of four is two.

So four for the semi breve, plus the two must equal six beats.

Can you whistle this to me? Can you hold a whistle? Or if you can't hold a whistle, can you do a vocal sound for me for six beats? Here's our count in one, two, three, four.

Well, my breath nearly ran out.

I don't know about yours.

Maybe I need to do some breathing exercises.

Okay let's try that one again.

Deep breath in one, two, three, four.

Awesome.

Here's our next dotted note.

What do you think this one is? What notes is it without the dot? That's right, it's a crotchet so plus the dot it must be a dotted crotchet, fantastic.

So a dotted crotchet is worth one and a half beats.

Why? Work it out.

Fantastic, so a crotchet is worth one beat and then we need to half the value of the crotchet which is half a beat, and we add them together.

So we get one and a half beats.

Reading dotted rhythms is really easy.

Can we clap the rhythm that's on screen now? Have a go on your own.

Let's have a go together.

One, two, three, four, one and two and three and four and.

Slightly different, this one.

Let's try it again.

One, two, three, four.

One and two and three and four and.

So this one includes a starting on the beat of two, but it doesn't include the whole of the beat.

So it's only the first half of beat two.

So here's a quick quiz for you.

Which note is this? Is it option one, a dotted semi breve, option two a dotted minim, option three a dotted crotchet, or option four a dotted quaver.

It is of course, a dotted crotchet, well done.

Which notes is this? Is it a dotted semi breve? Is it a dotted minim? Is it a dotted crotchet, or a dotted quaver? This is of course our dotted semi breve, it's worth six beats.

What's about this note? Is it a dotted semi breve, a dotted minim, a dotted crotchet, or a dotted quaver? It's of course a dotted minim, and it's worth three beats.

So what does a dot next to a note do to the note's value? Does it add six beats their value? Does it add three beats to the value? It adds half the beat to the value or does it add half of the note value to the note's original value? Congratulations, it adds half over the note value to the note's original value.

Well done.

Here is your first pause task of the lesson.

On your piece of paper can you draw a dotted semi brief, a dotted minim, and a dotted crotchet? And then write down the values of each of those next to them.

In a full sentence, can you also describe what a dotted note is? If you already know these musical notes, can you compose a four bar rhythm using the dotted notes? Remember you can use other notes and don't forget that you can also use rests.

Silence in music can be really powerful.

Clap through your composition and then if you can, you can transfer your composition to your instrument and add pitches to your rhythm composition.

Pause the video to complete your task and then resume once you're finished.

Next on our agenda is exploring ways to develop rhythmic ideas.

If you've watched my unit one lesson 10 video, you will have already seen these rhythm tiles in front of you.

I'm going to use them as a starting point to show you a few techniques in order to develop your rhythmic ideas.

These only use crotchets and quavers however, you can feel free to write out your own rhythm tiles, use your tiles from another lesson, or create your own with lots of different rhythmic ideas.

You do not have to just stick to crotchets and quavers, you can make this as easy or as hard as you like.

So we're going to explore about four or five different techniques on how you can develop your rhythm.

The first technique that I'm going to show you is called retrograde.

Can you say the word retrograde? It means playing something backwards.

So I'm going to take rhythm one as a first example, here it is as written.

Feel free to join in.

One, two, three, four.

If I was to play this backwards, I'd be reading it from right to left instead of left to right.

So backwards it would sound like this.

One, two, three, four.

Let's put both of those bars together.

So I'm going to play rhythm one, reading it forward as normal, and then reading it backwards as bar two.

Here we go, after the count in.

Remember you can use whatever body percussion you want to, doesn't just have to be clapping.

One, two, three, four.

There you have it, a two bar rhythm, easy retrograde.

Let's try it with rhythm two.

One, two, three, four.

And then if we were to play this backwards, we wouldn't have anything on beat one because there is a, that's right a crotchet rest.

So here it is, being played backwards? One, two, three, four.

Nice and easy.

Let's do the same as we did with rhythm one.

So we're going to play rhythm two the whole way through, and then we're going to play it backwards for bar two.

One, two, three, four.

Nice work.

What would happen if we put rhythm one, playing it as normal and then retrograde and then rhythm two playing it as normal and then retrograde together.

We'd create a four bar rhythm.

Let's have a go at seeing if we can do that.

Here's your count in.

One, two, three, four Lovely, okay so we've just composed a four bar rhythm using retrograde.

How could you use that in your rhythm tiles? The next technique that we're going to look at is note addition and note subtraction.

This is a technique that is used widely by minimalist composers, such as Phillip Glass and Steve Reich.

This is when we either add a note or we take a note away.

Now you can add notes whenever you like, and you can take way notes, whenever you like.

Usually we add one note at a time.

So let's take rhythm four as an example, rhythm four sounds like this, feel free to join in.

Here's our count in one, two, three, four.

So that's how it's written, but what would happen if we only started with that crotchet? So we'd say one, two, three, four, two three four.

And then we added the next crotchet into our bar.

So one, two, three, four, one, two, three four.

And then we add the crotchet rest and then we add our quaver and then we add our next quaver.

Let's have a listen to what that would sound like.

The next technique that I'm going to show you is improvising.

So making a rhythm up on the spot.

So in front of you, you can see rhythm one, rhythm two and rhythm three.

Between each of these rhythms, we're going to do a four beat improvisation.

If you want to challenge yourselves, you can do more than a four beats improvisation.

You could do an eight beat improvisation.

You could do a 12 beat improvisation, whatever you like.

So here's an example of what I mean.

You can join in too.

I'm going to play my metronome.

I'm going to start with rhythm one, then have a four bit improvisation and then moving to rhythm two, four beat improvisation, and then rhythm three.

Here we go.

How did you do? Shall we make the challenge a little bit harder? This time instead of improvising a one bar rhtyhm I would like you to improvise a two bar rhythm.

You're going to improvise that in between rhythm one and rhythm two and rhythm two and rhythm three.

Let's have a go and see how it goes.

Here's your count in after four.

One, two, three, four.

How did you do? Did you manage to count that? This time I'll just count in your beats so you can concentrate on putting in your own improvisations.

Hey, you go, I'll play rhythm one, rhythm two, and rhythm three with you.

You do the two bar improvisation.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Awesome work, well done.

Okay, what about this time let's see if we can add in retrograde as well as our improvising.

So at this time we're going to do exactly what we've just done.

So rhythm one eight beats of improvisation, rhythm, two eight beats of improvisation and rhythm three, but then we're going to repeat rhythm three, but we're going to play it backwards.

We're then going to do eight beats of improvisation again, we're then going play rhythm two but backwards.

We're then going to do our eight beats of improvisation, and then we're going to play rhythm one backwards.

So rhythm three, when we're playing in retrograde would sound like this, one, two, three, four,.

Rhythm two would sound like this one, two, three, four, one,.

And rhythm one would sound like this one, two, three, four.

And you would put your eight beats in between.

So we're starting reading from left to right with our improvisation between each rhythm and then we're reading from right to left.

Let's see how this goes.

It might take us a couple of go's.

Here we go, here's your count in.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Backwards.

One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight.

Hey, we did it first time.

Well done, if you want another go, you can always rewind the video and replay with that.

You could also mix up all the rhythms and you'd have lots of different rhythmic development by doing that, but just placing rhythm one where rhythm three was, placing rhythm two where rhythm one was or rhythm two where rhythm three was et cetera.

And that would give you lots and lots of rhythmic development and a really easy way of doing it whilst improvising and whilst using.

Our final technique is metrical displacement.

This is where you shift the rhythm forwards or backwards.

So let's take rhythm one, for example.

As written, rhythm one sounds like this.

But what would happen if actually we started that rhythm on beat two and it went over the bar.

So this time I'm going to play that as an ostinato.

So I'm going to play it four times and I would like you to start playing it as well, but I don't want you to start until I've played my beat one.

So you're effectively going to play on my beat two.

Let's have a go at this together.

We're going to play with the metronome to keep us in time, but we'll slightly end up going out of sync because of the metrical displacement.

So you start on beat two.

I start on beat one.

Here we go, play it four times.

One, two, three, four.

Did you see it go out of time, slightly or out of sync? That was because of the metric displacement and that gives us a really cool rhythmic development within our compositions.

And you could do that with layering, lots of different rhythms as well and using those within metrical displacement.

So now we have explored ways to develop our rhythmic ideas.

We need to compose a varied rhythmic piece.

Here's your next pause task.

Using the written tiles or your own composed rhythm tiles, compose an eight bar rhythm using one of the techniques that we've looked at.

So those could be retrograde, addition and subtraction, improvisation, every other bar, or metrical shifting.

If you've managed to do one technique, why not try another? Can you get a member of your household to guess which technique you are using? If you play an instrument, why not try to add pitches to your rhythms and compose a melody to go with them.

Remember to develop your ideas every four bars.

And remember you can add the dotted notes if you want to too.

When using metrical displacement as an extra addition, can you shift the rhythm backwards or forwards by half a beat as a stretch? Enjoy this task, press pause, complete the task and resume once you're finished.

Here's a quick quiz for you.

What is retrograde? Is it option one, playing the music backwards? Option two, playing the music is written? Option three, playing the music repetitively? Or option four, playing the music missing a bar at a time? It is of course, option one, playing the music backwards.

I hope you've used some of that in your compositions.

What about note addition? Is it option one, adding notes to a repeated phrase? Option two, subtracting notes from a repeated phrase? Option three, adding lots of notes all at once? Option four, playing lots of notes at the same time? It is option one, adding notes to a repeated phrase.

What about note subtraction? Is it option one, adding notes to a repeated phrase? Option two subtracting notes from a repeated phrase? Option three, adding notes all at once? Or option four, playing lots of notes at the same time? It is of course, option two, subtracting our notes from a repeated phrase.

And what is improvisation? Is it adding notes, option one? Is it subtracting notes, option two? Is it option three, which is playing off the beat? Or option four creating rhythm on the spot? It is of course, creating a rhythm on the spot, option four.

Well done.

I hope you are able to use some of those compositional techniques for your rhythms in your practise there.

So now that you've had to go at composing some of those techniques, we would like you to put them into a structure.

So we're going to be structuring and performing a varied rhythmic piece.

So your next pause task is how are you going to perform this? Well, you need to practise playing through it from start to finish.

You need to move fluently between each section.

You need to rehearse your piece.

Remember to structure each of your developmental ideas.

So what's going to come first? Are you going to use notes addition and then note subtraction? Are you going to improvise between every bar or every two bars? You need to structure your piece.

Once you've structured and you've practised playing through it, I would like you to perform it to members of your household.

Can you play it in time with a pulse or get a member of your household to play the pulse for you? Can you move fluidly between each section? If not, you need to practise more before you perform it to them.

And before you perform to your household, can you ask them to see if they can notice what your rhythmic development idea is and see if you can come up with any other ideas that you can develop your rhythms with further.

Pause the video to complete your task and resume once you're finished.

How did your performances go? Did your household members manage to guess which rhythmic device you were using and how you changed your rhythms throughout your composition? Were you able to use more than one of those devices that I taught you earlier? I hope so.

I hope these lessons give you lots of ideas on how to develop your rhythms within composition.

So final thoughts for today.

On your piece of paper, I would like you to answer the question that was on the green slide at the beginning of the lesson, how can we develop our musical ideas? Can you give me at least the five that I taught to you today? And if you can give me more, even better.

Pause the video now to complete your task and resume once you're finished.

What ideas did you come up with on how you could develop your musical ideas? In particular your rhythms within composition.

Off the top of my head today, we have talked about retrograde, we've talked about metrical shifting, we've talked about addition and subtraction and improvisation.

So those are some of the ideas in which you can develop your compositions, which other ways did you find and how are you going to develop your compositions in the future? So as we've come to the end of this lesson, you guys have worked super, super hard today.

Don't forget to complete the quiz to show how much you have learned.

Really, really good to see if you've remembered everything that I've taught you today.

And if you would like to show your work with Oak National, please ask your parents or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, tagging @OakNational and hashtag LearnwithOak.

That's all from me today, goodbye.

I've finished the video