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Hello.

My name's Mr. Pate.

I'm looking forward to playing lots of different rhythms with you in today's lesson.

By the end of the lesson, you'll be able to read and compose rhythm grid notation that includes many symbols.

Here are some of the keywords that we'll be using in today's lesson.

We'll be talking a lot about rhythm, and rhythm is the patterns of sounds and silences that we play and sing.

We'll be thinking about the beat, and the beat is the playing or showing of the steady pulse, like the ticking of a clock.

We'll be combining sounds together to make a thicker texture, and texture is that combination of different layers of sounds.

We'll be writing our rhythms down, and we'll be using notation.

Notation just means a way of writing music down.

Finally, we'll be playing an ostinato pattern.

Ostinato means a repeating musical pattern, which could be a rhythm or could be a melody.

We'll come back to all of these words in today's lesson.

Before we start, though, it's important to warm up our minds and our bodies so we're ready to make music together.

When we have songs that use actions and movements, they help to develop our coordination and help us understand rhythm and develop our sense of pulse.

Let's join in with some action songs and movements to help us warm up.

Join in with "Do as I'm Doing." <v ->Ready, steady.

Off we go.

</v> <v All>Do as I'm doing, follow me.

</v> Do as I'm doing, follow me.

If I do it high or low, if I do it fast or slow.

Do as I'm doing, follow me.

Ready, steady, off we go.

Do as I'm doing, follow me.

If I do it high or low, if I do it fast or slow.

Do as I'm doing, follow me.

Ready, steady, off we go.

Do as I'm doing, follow me.

If I do it high or low, if I do it fast or slow.

Do as I'm doing, follow me.

Ready, steady, off we go.

Do as I'm doing, follow me.

If I do it high or low, if I do it fast or slow.

Do as I'm doing, follow me.

<v ->Now join in with "Dr.

Knickerbocker."</v> (upbeat piano music) ♪ Dr.

Knickerbocker, Knickerbocker, number nine ♪ ♪ He likes to dance and to keep in time ♪ ♪ Now I've got the rhythm in my hands ♪ ♪ Now I've got the rhythm in my hands ♪ ♪ Now I've got the rhythm of the number nine ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, five ♪ ♪ Six, seven, eight, nine ♪ ♪ Dr.

Knickerbocker, Knickerbocker, number nine ♪ ♪ He likes to dance and to keep in time ♪ ♪ Now I've got the rhythm in my feet ♪ ♪ Now I've got the rhythm in my feet ♪ ♪ Now I've got the rhythm of the number nine ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, five ♪ ♪ Six, seven, eight, nine ♪ ♪ Dr.

Knickerbocker, Knickerbocker, number nine ♪ ♪ He likes to dance and to keep in time ♪ ♪ Now I've got the rhythm in my hips ♪ ♪ Now I've rhythm in my hips ♪ ♪ Now I've got the rhythm of the number nine ♪ ♪ One, two, three, four, five ♪ ♪ Six, seven, eight, nine ♪ (upbeat piano music continues) <v ->Finally, join in with "I Have a Car."</v> (bright piano music) ♪ I have a car, it's made of tin ♪ ♪ Nobody knows what shape it's in ♪ ♪ It has four wheels and a rumble seat ♪ ♪ Hear us chugging down the street ♪ ♪ Honk, honk, rattle, rattle, toot, crash, beep-beep ♪ ♪ Honk, honk, rattle, rattle, toot, crash, beep-beep ♪ ♪ Honk, honk, rattle, rattle, toot, crash, beep-beep ♪ ♪ Honk, honk ♪ ♪ I have a car, it's made of tin ♪ ♪ Nobody knows what shape it's in ♪ ♪ It has four wheels and a rumble seat ♪ ♪ Hear us chugging down the street ♪ ♪ Honk, honk, rattle, rattle, toot, crash, beep-beep ♪ ♪ Honk, honk, rattle, rattle, toot, crash, beep-beep ♪ ♪ Honk, honk, rattle, rattle, toot, crash, beep-beep ♪ ♪ Honk, honk ♪ <v ->Hopefully, you're feeling really nice and warmed up now.

</v> Are you ready to play together? Alex says, "I can feel the pulse." Aisha says, "My body feels warm," and Lucas says, "I feel alert and ready to focus." Hopefully, you feel all these things and feel really nice and ready to make music together.

Here are the learning cycles for today's lesson.

We'll start by looking at building texture using rhythm grids.

Then, we'll be composing using many symbols.

Let's start by building texture using rhythm grids.

When layers of music are played together, they create a texture, and remember, that word texture just describes the different layers that we have going on at any time in a piece of music.

Andeep says, "The more musical layers we combine, the thicker the texture." Here's an example using a rhythm grid.

A rhythmic texture can be notated using dots in a rhythm grid.

Down the left hand side, we can see the different instruments, and along the top, those numbers, are the beats, 1, 2, 3, and 4, that steady pulse, in the background to all these different rhythms. We can notate many parts to be played at the same time, and in this example, each beat is subdivided into smaller parts, so we can see the djembe is playing just at the start of every beat, whereas the other instruments have different patterns of subdivisions in their beats.

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

See if you can follow along with the rhythm grid, seeing which instruments are playing when.

<v Instructor>Ready, steady, off we go.

</v> (rhythmic music) (rhythmic music continues) <v ->Now we've had a listen, we're going</v> to practice playing this rhythm grid with a four layer texture.

The parts of the rhythm are a djembe part, a guiro, some claves, and an egg shaker.

Now, if you're lucky enough to have those instruments where you are, then fantastic.

You can use them, but you can use body percussion sounds or any other untuned percussion instrument.

For this rhythm, each layer will be played by a different instrument.

So how do we put this together? Well, each of the rhythm patterns on the grid is repeated over and over again, and when we have a repeated musical pattern, we call it an ostinato.

Here's the first part, which is played on the djembe.

I'm gonna perform this for you now.

It sounds like this.

Ready, steady, off we go.

(Mr. Pate clapping hands) So each of those sounds is played once on every beat.

Practice clapping this rhythm together with me, and then you can decide who's gonna play that djembe part.

If you're lucky enough to have a djembe drum, make sure it isn't flat on the floor, and play it with your hand.

If you'd prefer to use a body percussion sound or another instrument, that's fine.

Try clapping along with me.

As this is an ostinato, we'll play it four times in a row.

Ready, steady, off we go.

(Mr. Pate clapping hands) (Mr. Pate clapping hands) So there's our first part, the djembe part.

True or false? When we say ostinato, do we mean a way of writing music down? What do you think? True or false? The answer is false.

An ostinato is a word that describes a repeating musical pattern.

Now let's have a look at the next rhythmic pattern.

The claves are gonna play a pattern that we can call the Ta-dimi rhythm, the notation for which looks like you can see on your screen, and you can see the rhythm grid below.

That would sound like this.

Ready, steady, off we go.

Ta-dimi, Ta-dimi, Ta-dimi, Ta-dimi.

Try clapping that rhythm with me now.

We'll do it four times in a row.

Ready, steady, off we go.

Ta-dimi, Ta-dimi, Ta-dimi, Ta-dimi.

Now you've had a practice.

Decide who's gonna play the claves part, and if you've got one of those instruments in front of you, you can play it by cradling one of the sticks in your hand and holding the other loosely, so that they can resonate and sound nice and loud.

Now, let's have a look at the guiro parts.

This part plays the Takadimi rhythm.

That means it plays on every part of the four subdivisions of the beats.

It sounds like this.

Ready, steady, off we go.

Takadimi, Takadimi, Takadimi, Takadimi.

Try clapping that along with me now.

We'll play it four times in a row.

Ready, steady, off we go.

Takadimi, Takadimi, Takadimi, Takadimi.

Great.

Now you've had a practice, you can decide who will play the guiro part.

If you're using a real guiro, you can use the beater to scrape up and down to play this nice quick rhythm.

Finally, we've got our shaker.

The shaker plays the Takadimi rhythm, but it's followed by a one beat rest each time.

It sounds like this.

Ready, steady, off we go.

Takadimi, Takadimi.

Let's try clapping that together.

We'll do it four times in a row.

Here we go.

Ready, steady, off we go.

Takadimi, Takadimi.

Great.

Now you can decide who is going to play the shaker.

If you're using an egg shaker like the one you can see, hold it gently in your hand, and you can play it by using a throwing back and forth action to get some nice, quick movements.

Before we try playing this all together, have a listen to this example clip.

You're gonna hear one of these rhythmic patterns, and I'd like you to have a think, which one do you think you're hearing? Is it A, B, or C? Have a listen.

<v Instructor>Ready, steady, off we go.

</v> (egg shaker shaking) (egg shaker shaking) <v ->The answer is B.

</v> You're hearing the shaker rhythm, which is playing Takadimi and then a rest.

Now let's try putting this rhythm all together.

Make sure you're really confident with how your part goes and can play it over and over again, keeping a steady pulse.

When you've done that, we can try adding the different layers together.

You might want to try doing them one at a time, starting with just the djembe, then adding the claves, then the guiro, then the shaker, or you might try all coming in at the same time by counting in "ready, steady, off we go," and then starting your rhythm.

Pause this video now, and spend some time practicing your own parts, then layering them together.

When you've done it, press play again, and we'll try playing this rhythm to a backing track.

So, hopefully, you've spent some time there practicing your rhythm and layering them together, and I'm sure it's sounding great.

Now let's try playing it to a backing track.

You'll hear a count in, and then, begin your rhythm.

Good luck.

Here we go.

(symbol chiming) (rhythmic snapping) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) (upbeat music continues) Well done for playing all those different rhythms together.

Did you manage to keep a steady beat on that djembe, keeping all the other rhythms in time? Did you manage to read and play your rhythm accurately? Did you hold and play your instrument correctly, so it made a clear sound? Now let's have a look at composing using many symbols.

Rhythm grids are really useful.

They can tell us the patterns of sound and silence that we should play, but they can also tell each performer more than one instruction.

Let's have a look at this rhythm grid.

There's a few different symbols, and each one represents a different body percussion sound.

The triangle represents the thigh tap.

The little blue sun represents the clap, and the sideways diamond symbols represents the stomp.

Watch this video showing this grid being performed.

<v ->Ready, steady, off we go.

</v> (instructor tapping, clapping, and stomping) (instructor tapping, clapping, and stomping) <v ->Now you've seen this being performed, it's over</v> to you to have a try at playing it yourself.

You can see the Takidimi patterns listed underneath, Takadi, Takadi, ta-di-ta, and that should help you work out and decode what these rhythms sound like.

Chanting that in your head while you're playing is a great way to keep yourself on track.

Once you've had a go at playing it at a nice, slow tempo, you might try challenging yourself by playing it at a faster tempo.

Pause this video now and spend a little bit of time performing this rhythm.

Now you might recognize the sound of the rhythm that's just been played.

This is the rhythm of a chant called "Sagadi, Sagadi, Sapopo!" The rhythm sounds like this, Sagadi, Sagadi, Sapopo! So it uses that same pattern of Takadi, Takadi, ta-di-ta.

In the rhythm grid we've just used, only one line is used, but it tells the performer three different instructions.

Tells them when to do a thigh tap, when there's a triangle symbol, when to clap, using the blue sun symbol, and when to stamp, using the pink stomp symbol.

Here's another rhythm grid to have a go at performing.

Now instead of these all happening at the same time, try performing one line at a time.

Start with the top line, then go into the second, then the third, and then finally the fourth.

Have a look at a video showing what this rhythm would sound like.

<v ->Ready, steady, off we go.

</v> (instructor tapping, clapping, and stomping) (instructor tapping, clapping, and stomping) <v ->Now you might recognize the sound of that rhythm as well</v> because it's the rhythm of a chant you might have heard before, the Alligator chant.

It sounds like this: Alligator high, alligator low.

Alligator fast and then he's slow.

Alligator up, alligator down.

Alligator on the farm and also in the town! That's the Alligator chant.

So, we're gonna have a go at performing this.

As you read the rhythm grid and perform the rhythm using the body percussion, you can also add in your chant.

It'll look a bit like this.

<v ->Ready, steady, off we go.

</v> Alligator high, alligator low.

Alligator fast and then he's slow.

Alligator up, alligator down.

Alligator on the farm and also in the town.

<v ->Now you've seen an example.

</v> Pause this video and try performing the Alligator chant with the body percussion actions.

Now let's move on to some composing.

In some small groups, you're gonna compose an eight beat rhythm using a rhythm grid.

And when we say compose, what we mean is to make up new musical ideas.

You're gonna choose up to four different simple symbols or colors to represent different instruments or different parts of body percussion.

Don't forget to add a key.

We need to know what symbol means what sound.

Make sure that you can read and play it successfully, following a steady pulse.

If it's really complicated, it can be quite hard to play, so we wanna try and keep it nice and simple, so it's easy to play.

To help you work out those rhythms, chant the rhythm names using Takadimi to help you hear how it sounds.

You might like to be inspired by rhythms from chants and songs that you already know.

You're welcome to Include those ideas in your composition.

Here's a blank rhythm grid for you to use.

Spend some time now composing and then playing your rhythms. When you're composing each beat of your rhythm, think about which Takadimi pattern you're going to use.

It's always a good idea to include the Ta, the first beat, but then you can use any combination of Takadimi, Ta-dimi, Ta-mi, and all these different patterns that we've been using.

Pause the video now and spend some time composing your rhythm and then playing it back.

Don't forget to include that key, showing what each symbol means.

Now you've spent some time composing and playing your rhythm, let's have a quick check and make sure that each beat can be played and chanted accurately.

Did you use different combinations of these rhythmic patterns, Takadimi, Ta-di, Takadi, and Ta-dimi? If you need to go back and change some of your rhythms to make them easier to play, you're welcome to do so now.

In today's lesson, we've learned that the beat can be subdivided into smaller parts, and it can be notated on a rhythm grid using symbols like dots.

A rhythm grid can help you to read and perform layers of music at the same time, which creates a nice, thick texture.

Finally, multiple different symbols can represent different sounds on the same rhythm grid.

Well done for your great rhythmic playing in today's lesson.

I look forward to seeing you again in the next one.

I've finished the video