Lesson video

- Hello, everyone.

Welcome to lesson three, reading syncopated rhythms. If you haven't done already, make sure you've done lesson one and lesson two first.

We're going to be looking at notation today and seeing what syncopated rhythms look like when we write them down.

We're going to be using our singing voice, our hands, some body percussion.

Let's go.

[Speaker] In today's lesson, we are going to recap what syncopation means.

We're going to read syncopated rhythms. And we're going to add syncopated rhythms. In this lesson, you will need your hands and brain.

Activity one: recapping what syncopation means.

Let's look at the definition for syncopation.

Rhythm patterns where stressed notes are placed off the beat.

All right, let's remind ourselves of our hello warmup.

Are you ready? Straight in.

♪ Hello, hello, hello.

♪ Get your body moving let's go.

♪ Stamp your feet clap your hands.

♪ Turn your brain on, focus now.

Well done.

This time, what I would like you to do, is I would just like you to keep the pulse rather than the rhythm.

Okay? So tap in that rhythm on your shoulders or on your knees.

Ready? My turn, your turn.

♪ Hello, hello, hello.

♪ ♪ Get your body moving, let's go.

♪ ♪ Stamp your feet and clap your hands.

♪ ♪ Turn your brain on focus now.

♪ Well done.

This time, we're going to sing the song all the way through together.

Okay, are we ready? So this is our pulse.

♪ Off we go, four white horses on the river ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, hey, up tomorrow ♪ ♪ Up tomorrow is a rainy day ♪ ♪ Come on and join our shadow play ♪ ♪ Shadow play is a ripe banana ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, hey, up tomorrow ♪ ♪ Up tomorrow is a rainy day ♪ Well done.

Should we go a little bit quicker? Okay, this time I'm going to click in two, okay? Cause we're going to go a lot faster instead of going all the way through.

Okay? So it's going to go like this.

♪ Four white horses on the river ♪ Okay, we're ready? ♪ Off we go ♪ ♪ Four white horses on the river ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, hey, up tomorrow ♪ ♪ Up tomorrow is a rainy day ♪ ♪ Come on and join our shadow play ♪ ♪ Shadow play is a ripe banana ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, hey, up tomorrow ♪ ♪ Up tomorrow is a rainy day ♪ Well done if you managed to get all the way to the end and get all the words right as well.

Right, we are going to create some repeated patterns underneath our four white horses now.

A repeated pattern is called an ostinato.

It means it keeps going and going and going, a short little pattern.

So, the first ostinato we're going to do is the one that you can see on the screen.

And that is in syncopated rhythm like this.

Join in.

One and, one and, one and, one and, Well done.

Can you remember what it's called when we layer lots of rhythms on top of each other? It's called a polyrhythm.

Now we're only going to do two today.

Okay, so we've got that one.

And the second one we're going to do goes like this.

One and two and three and four.

One and two and three and four.

One and two and three and four.

One and two and three and four.

Join in.

One and two and three and four.

One and two and three and four.

One and two and three and four.

One and two and three and four.

Good, well done.

Let's have a go now then.

You can choose a rhythm.

Remember you can rewind and have a go at both of them, if you would like.

And the tricky thing is, can you sing and clap the rhythm at the same time as well? Time to layer our rhythms now.

I will be the syncopated rhythm.

Then next to me will be the quaver rhythm.

And then the song will join in at the end.

Are we ready? One, two, three, four.

Rhythm 2.

Song.

♪ Off we go, four white horses on the river ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, hey, up tomorrow ♪ ♪ Up tomorrow is a rainy day ♪ ♪ Come on and join our shadow play ♪ ♪ Shadow play is a ripe banana ♪ ♪ Hey, hey, hey, up tomorrow ♪ ♪ Up tomorrow is a rainy day ♪ Well done.

[Speaker] Let's recap.

What is syncopation? Rhythm patterns where stressed notes are placed off the beat? The heartbeat of the music? Making sounds using our bodies? Or the length of sound, whether it is long or short? Have a think.

It's rhythm patterns where stressed notes are placed off the beat.

Well done.

To read syncopated rhythms. Before we go on to reading notation, let's just have a look at the notation that might feature in our rhythms. You may have seen some of this before, maybe if you play a musical instrument, or you might have seen it at school.

On the screen it shows all the different ones we are going to be using.

So, we've got a crotchet.

We've been using these quite a lot, and these are our one beat notes.

ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta And next to it, that squiggly thing there, is called a crotchet rest.

So that is a "shh", for one beat.

Underneath, we have our quavers, okay.

Which are our TT, TT, TT, TA.

We can have one which is half a beat, or two together to make a whole beat.

And next to it again, that's what the rest looks like.

And finally, we might see semiquavers.

So semi is half of a quaver.

Which means instead of a half it's now a quarter.

And these ones we would go, Tuka tuka, tuka tuka, tuka tuka, tuka tuka.

And again, the rest is next to it.

If you need to rewind at any point in this video to re-look at these notations, don't worry.

So our first rhythm that we're going to layer is very easy.

It uses crotchets, one beat notes, and each one is placed on the beat.

Okay? So it should go, One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, join in.

One, two three, four.

Well done.

Let's try the next one.

This one features crotchets and quavers.

Can you remember how long the quavers were? They're half a beat.

Okay.

And this rhythm is syncopated because one of the quavers is placed on the 'and' of two.

It's off the beat.

So this one goes like this.

One, two, and three, four.

One, two, and three, four.

Join in.

One, two, and three, four.

One, two, and three, four.

Well done.

Again, this is syncopated because it features quavers on the 'and' of one and the 'and' of three.

So it goes like this.

One and two and three and four.

One and two and three and four.

One and two and three and four.

One and two and three and four.

One and two and three and four.

One and two and three and four.

Well done.

- [Speaker] Let's recap the rhythms that we just went through.

Which of these rhythms did we not learn? Have a look, feel free to clap them if you would like to.

And the answer is.

This one.

TT, shh, Ta, shh.

This is not a syncopated rhythm.

Right, it's now time to layer the rhythms that we learned over the top of each other, okay? Each rhythm will be in a different box on the screen.

Remember, if you would like to try all of the rhythms, which I hope you do, just rewind the video after each one and choose a different box.

Are we ready? Number one.

One, two, three, four.

Number two.

Number three.

Yay, well done.

Goodbye everyone.

Well done for your hard work in this lesson.

I hope to see you next time for lesson four.

We're going to be doing some composing, reading more rhythms, and hopefully you'll understand now a lot more about syncopation and what it looks like when we write it down.

[Speaker] - Well done for your hard work today.

Don't forget to share your work with a class teacher.

Or if you would like to, please ask your parent or carer to share your work on Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter, tagging @OakNational and #LearnWithOak.

I hope to see you for lesson four soon.

Buh-bye.