Rhythm on a Score

Getting Your Rhythm Right (Part 3)

Quick recap: so far, we’ve learnt what pulsing is, how to pulse, as well as what various music symbols (notes and rests) mean in terms of rhythm.

Today we’ll be briefly teaching you how to combine all these skills together, to learn the rhythm of new songs 🙂

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First of all I’d like to say I totally felt the same if you’re feeling unconfident in reading music from a score. It’s just a huge blur of symbols and stuff right?

But don’t worry 🙂 Writing our pulse will help us to visualise the rhythm much better, and with practice, you’ll be able to tackle most acapella songs easily 🙂

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4/4 Rhythm

To reiterate, 4/4 timing means we have 4 beats in a bar, and each beat is 1 quarter note long (crotchet).

Figure 1: Example of writing pulse in a 4/4 song

The red vertical lines represent the beat. Notice how I draw it through the note/rest, not before or after? It means that that note/rest happens exactly on the beat.

To subdivide further, I put + signs to represent the “and” beat (remember, the pulse goes “1 and 2 and 3 and…” etc.). Similarly, I put these directly above/below the relevant notes/rests.

If you have a problem reading the note and figuring out where to draw the pulse, draw it in smaller chunks. Looking at the alto line, it may be a bit confusing to read the dotted crotchets, so I’ve drawn them as a bunch of quavers (1/8 note) joined together. This makes it easier for me to see where my pulse lies.

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6/8 rhythm

6/8 is a little tricker. Now, the pattern is “1 + + 2 + +” for every bar.

Figure 2: Example of writing pulse in a 6/8 song

Same concept: vertical line to represent the beat, + to represent the “and” beats, with longer notes drawn as a collection of smaller notes to help visualise the pulse, when needed.

Pulsing in 6/8 is a little tricker. I would personally tap the table 6 times in each bar, but tap much softer for the + beats. So the “1 + + 2 + +” pulse would be tapped out as “BANG tap tap BANG tap tap” (pls don’t break your fingers).

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The last part is practicing. Forget about pitch first; read the lyrics out loud. Start pulsing with a slow tempo, then chant your lyrics, in rhythm. Ensure that you say the lyrics exactly with the correct part of the pulse.

Once confident with the rhythm:

  1. Sing in a faster tempo
  2. Add the pitch (sing in solfege first)
  3. Add the correct lyrics + the pitch
  4. Sing together with other people
  5. Remove the hand pulsing

That’s how you integrate your rhythm, pitch and lyrics in a stepwise, methodical manner.

Note: For songs in 2/2 rhythm, I would ignore the 2/2 part at first and learn it as if it was a 4/4 rhythm song. Only after getting good at it would I switch to 2/2; emphasising the notes sung on pulse 1 and 3.

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Here’s a worked example of a proper song 🙂

Refer to 0:15 – 0:23
Example 1: PTX’s Rather Be
0:15 – 0:23

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Yes, I know it’s slow at first.

But don’t feel pressured by people who can sing it immediately; you’re not there to learn the song as fast as they can, you’re there to learn it as fast as you can!

Practice at your own pace 🙂 and with discipline and practice, soon you’ll also be able to learn new songs really fast 🙂

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Well, that’s it for this post 🙂 hope yall are feeling more confident of learning your rhythm now!

The last part is about triplets and swing rhythm, which is a little more complex. Once you’re feeling ready, head over to part 4 to learn about it 🙂

~ Andrew