Activity 2 - Rhythm
Tea, Coffee, Milk, Sugar
In the melody tasks, the note value you used to create your tunes was the crotchet,
or one-beat note. If you could give this note value a descriptive name,
any one syllable word would suffice. For this exercise, use the word
Tea or Milk. It would be perfectly acceptable to use
your own name, so long as it was something like Tom or Anne, but not if
it was Elizabeth or Christopher!
This one beat note can be split into two
halves called quavers 
(or
half-beat notes). In one crotchet there are two quavers, or like the
words Coffee and Sugar, one word with two syllables. To show that two
quavers make up the same value as one crotchet, they are joined across
the top with a beam 
.
Putting this all together, the phrase Tea,
Coffee, Milk, Sugar would look like this when written in
Notate:
Listen to this rhythm a few times, then try to clap the rhythm (saying the words will help you to keep in time).
Longer Rhythms
When you write these rhythms in Notate, it may help if you create a new track which has only one line on which to place the notes. To do this, click the Menu (middle) mouse button in the Notate window, move the pointer across Track, move the pointer across New track and select a Percussion stave from the dialogue box. Notate will provide a drum sound when you place notes on the new track to remind you that it is a percussion stave.Write down the rhythm for the following phrases on your new percussion stave (you can check if you are right by clicking the phrases after you have written the rhythm).
Coffee Sugar Tea Milk | Sugar Tea Coffee
Milk
Milk Sugar Coffee Tea | Coffee Sugar Coffee
Milk
Your Rhythms
Now it's your turn to make up your own rhythm words. Try to think of some words which have one and two syllables. It would be great if your words 'went together' just like Tea, Coffee, Milk, Sugar. Here are a few suggestions to start you off:Hot Water Cold Water
Apple Lemon Peach Plum
When you have made up your own word rhythms, write them on a percussion stave in Notate. Don't forget, you should practice clapping your rhythms to make sure that you can perform them accurately before getting Notate to play them for you.
Mixed Rhythms
This is where it starts getting tricky! You are going to clap one rhythm (Rhythm 1 below) whilst an another pupil (or Notate) performs a different rhythm (Rhythm 2 below). To make it a little easier than it sounds, Rhythm 2 is an ostinato (the same rhythm repeated over and over). Your rhythm (Rhythm 1) uses some of the rhythms you have practised earlier. If you want to hear these rhythms, you can write them in Notate using two percussion staves, although you should try to perform them before getting Notate to play them for you.
What word rhythms would you use for Rhythm 1?
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