Lesson video

Hello, my name is Miss Charatan.

I am really excited to teach today's lesson, because I love reggae, and I'm really, really excited to be listening to it and playing it with you.

Let's get started with a warmup, and then we will crack on with the rest of our lesson.

Okay, let's get started.

So if you were doing Units One and Two, this might be quite familiar to you.

If you haven't done this before, then don't worry.

So, I'm just going to recap a couple of things before we go.

So we've got this four four at the top here.

That is a time signature, and that tells us how many beats are in a bar.

So the four on the top tells us there are four beats in a bar.

The four at the bottom tells us that each beat is worth a crotchet, so one beat.

This note here is a semibreve and lasts for four beats, so the entire bar.

I am going to do a warmup with you, however, I'm not going to be able to clap all the time because my video is going to lag and it will be very distracting for you.

So I totally trust that you can do this by yourself, without my help, but I will help you out for the more tricky rhythms. So clap on beat one of this track, we ready? One, two, three, four.

So you should have been clapping on beat one like this.

One, two, three, four, one.

If you were putting the and in, it will have been, one and two and three and four and one.

If you're happy with that, let's move on.

If you want to practise again, that's fine, reverse.

Okay, let's have a look, can we clap on every beat? These are one beat notes in musical crotchets, so if I was counting every single beat, one and two and three and four, and one and two and three and four and.

Let's try with the track.

Don't get put off by the chords, 'cause they are off beat.

We will talk about that later, so make sure you're not clapping in time with the chords, you're clapping on one, two, three, four.

Okay, can we clap this rhythm? This is a different rhythm here.

We have got two half beat notes, and these are called quavers.

Clap this rhythm to my left, and then check it with me in a moment.

It will sound like this.

One and two and three and four and.

We're not going to clap this one with a track, we'll do a few more later.

Well done if got that one correct.

What would happen if I removed some of these notes? So try and clap this one for me.

I'm going to count you in on four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one and two, three and four and.

Should have sounded like this.

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

Let's now see if we can take any more away.

This is even more challenging, we ready? One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.

If you clapped it by making sure you were not clapping on one, you were correct.

Ready? So three, four, one, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

Well done if you got that one correct, this is good brain gymnast today.

Let's move on.

Now, this is slightly more challenging.

Can we try this one? Clap it now.

And then check with me.

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

One, two, three, four.

Well done if you got that one correct.

Now, this is slightly more tricky.

So we've just clapped the rhythm at the top.

What would happen if we took some of these notes away? Have a look now, and try and work out the rhythm for yourself.

And then you're going to check it with me.

I suggest you slow down the one and two and three and four and, to get it absolutely correct.

Okay, we ready? Let's clap it together.

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

Challenging.

Well done if you got that one correct.

So you can see here, we have got two brand new notes.

We've got a half beat note on its own.

So this is one of these, but obviously it's not joined to anything, 'cause it's not another one here.

And this is a half beat rest, called a quaver.

And that's telling us not to play or clap at that time.

Well done for a great warmup.

If you want to go back over some of those rhythms, and make sure you can clap really well, then you can just rewind the video.

In this lesson, you will need a piece of paper or something to write on, a pencil, a pen, or something to write with, and the voice instrument or app.

I would really recommend an app called Virtual Piano.

You can get this on your phone, and it will look a little bit like this.

So it's just like a piano keyboard on your phone.

Go and get those things ready now, pause the video, and then come back when you're ready.

So in this lesson, we have got lots of things to get through.

We're going to start by learning about off beat rhythms. We will then explore typical reggae rhythms. We will learn how to play a G major chord on your instrument.

And we'll learn a typical reggae chord progression, which will mean you can play lots of reggae songs.

And lastly, we will explore how to play a chord in different ways, to make it sound more interesting and musical.

Let's begin by learning about offbeat rhythms. So in our warmup, we were clapping four beat motifs, and we are now going to look at how we can divide these parts of the beat up into weak and strong.

So each part of the beat, each beat can be divided into two B.

So we've got the one, and we've got the and, which happens halfway through.

So I'm now going to ask you to decide which part is stronger, is it the one, or is it the and? We're going to try this just by using our bodies, to help us really feel it.

So when we clap, or then we can also put it on our chests, which makes us feel it even more.

So I'd like you to do the following.

So just tap with me.

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

Let's now feel the and, so you're going to put one hand in front of you, like this, you're going to hit your hand on the and.

So it's going to go like this.

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

Decide now which is stronger.

Is it the one, two, three, four, or is it the four ands? Okay, if you said it was the numbers, you were correct.

That is kind of where the natural strength of the beat is lying.

We can call that the on beat, we can call the and the off beat.

We're on, we're off.

Okay, it's almost bouncing off that on beat.

So let's have a look at this.

Is this on beat or off beat? Clap it now.

One, two, three, four, One, two, three, four.

On or off? Decide now.

If you said on, you are correct.

This is because the notes fall on the main beat, so they fall on the numbers.

What would happen now, if I moved these notes across, so they actually start on the and? So we now need to divide it up into one and two and three and four and.

We'll clap on the and.

We ready? Two, three, four, and one, and two, and three, and four and.

You can really feel that that is off beat, 'cause they do not fall on the main beats, and those notes fall on and.

That is actually a mistake at the end.

So I'm hoping that you spotted that, because that needs to be a quaver.

Otherwise it spills over the end of the bar, and there's too many notes in the bar.

So that's the correct way to write it.

You would probably normally write it like this.

What is that symbol at the very beginning of the bar, which looks like a seven, actually? That is a quaver rest.

That tells us not to play or clap then.

So this would be even shorter, really.

Let's clap it together, one and two and three and four and, one and two, and three, and four and.

Well done if you got that one correct.

So I'm going to clap you some rhythms, and you're going to tell me whether they're on or off beat.

I'm not going to clap literally everything on beat, literally everything off beat, so you need to really decide which is the most on beat, or whether it's more off beat.

First one.

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

That is mostly on beat.

How about this one? One and two, and three, and four and, one and.

That is half on on beat, half off beat, really, we'd call that off beat really, 'cause I start on that and.

One and two and three and four and.

How about this one? One and two and three and four.

That one is off beat.

I did start on the beat, but all the rest of the notes were off beat.

One and two and three and four and, like that.

How about this one? One, two, three, four.

That was on beat.

Well done if you got those four correct, you could even try out some on off beat quizzing with your family.

So let's have a quick quiz to recap what we've done so far.

What is this rest and duration? Choose from the three answers below.

And let's check your answer.

It is a quaver rest and half a beat.

Well done if you got that one correct.

How about this one? If you said it was a quaver half a beat, you were correct.

Well done.

So we've now learnt about off beat rhythms, and we're now going to go on to explore some typical reggae rhythms, using our off and on beat knowledge.

So what do we already know about reggae? Pause the video, write down the answers to these questions, and then resume when you're ready.

Okay.

Let's go.

So reggae is from Jamaica, which is in the Caribbean.

You may have seen this flag, maybe if you've watched the Olympics at some point.

Usain Bolt is from Jamaica.

Very, very fast.

What are reggae songs about? You may have heard of some already.

Reggae songs are generally about peace, love, religion, and political problems. And lastly, what famous musicians do you know? One springs to mind.

He is Bob Marley, and he looks like this.

Well done if you got that information.

Let's now go and explore some more things about reggae.

So we're going to listen really carefully to the rhythms used in reggae.

So here are my four people in my band.

We're going to be listening particularly to the rhythm used in playing the chords.

So we're not going to be listening too much to the other things, we're going to really focus on those chords, and what the rhythm is like.

So here are two artists I'd like to show you today.

The first one is Etana, and she is going to sing to us, "I Rise." Etana is a famous female reggae artist, and she's actually the only female artist to have won a Grammy for reggae.

Let's now listen to part of, "I Rise", and you are going to listen out for the rhythm of the chords.

♪ I rise ♪ ♪ I rise ♪ ♪ See I'm hurting but not broken ♪ ♪ Down but I won't die ♪ So that was part of her song, "I Rise." If you'd like to listen to the rest of it, I do encourage you to do so.

Our other artists we're going to look at is someone called Matisyahu.

Matisyahu is Orthodox Jewish, and he is from USA.

And he is going to sing, "King Without a Crown." We're going to listen to the rhythm of the chords in his song.

♪ You're all that I have ♪ ♪ And you're all that I need ♪ ♪ Each and every day I pray ♪ ♪ To get to know you please ♪ ♪ Want to be close to you ♪ ♪ Yes I'm so hungry ♪ ♪ You're like water for my soul ♪ ♪ When it gets thirsty ♪ ♪ Without you ♪ So we've just listened to both of their songs, and the chord rhythm in them.

What do they have in common? Are they on or off beat, and what effect does this have on the music? Pause video.

You might want to just go back again and listen to the chords.

And resume you when you're ready.

So the courts were off beat, and we call this a skank rhythm, or skank chords in reggae music.

And the effect this has, it makes it really, really energetic, and it really brings that energy.

So this is what the chord rhythm would look like.

Can we see that the chords are on the and, one and two and three and four and.

So that just gives that kind of slightly energetic vibe to reggae music.

We're now going to go and play a skank rhythm ourselves.

Before we do that, though, we're going to be looking at some triads, how can you work out the triad on a keyboard? Remind yourself now.

The correct answer is press one, miss one, and press one.

So we're now going to recap some chords that you may have learnt before, in order to play them in a skank rhythm.

And you can see that on the chord diagrams to my left, we have got some numbers.

I'm just going to explain to you what these numbers correspond to, 'cause they correspond to our fingers, however, confusingly, they are different fingers to the numbers we use for the keyboard.

So finger number one, we're talking about guitar and ukelele, is actually you're pointing your index finger, number two and number three.

So on my ukulele here, and you could see on a diagram to my left, your finger number two is going to be on the second fret from the top.

Finger number one, finger number two, finger number three, like this.

This is finger number one.

That's the most important thing.

This is finger number one.

Same with guitar.

For keyboard, the keyboard finger number one is your thumb.

So if you're playing this on a keyboard, you need to be using finger number one, three, and five.

So you can be doing this on a guitar or ukelele, if you have this at home, or a keyboard.

If you don't have a keyboard, then I've got a great app for you.

So this one here, called Virtual Piano.

So you won't be able to use fingers one, three, and five, 'cause that will be too difficult, but you're going to play the notes.

So for E minor, E, G, and B, and together.

It can make quite a good sound.

So the same with A minor.

So for A minor, on a ukulele, I've got with me here, show me finger number two.

So finger number two is the middle finger.

Okay? So finger number two needs to go up here on the ukulele.

And again, same with a keyboard.

If you're on a real piano or keyboard, use one, three, and five.

If you are on a virtual piano, or one on your computer, just use whatever fingers fit best with the screen, et cetera.

So you are now going to be playing A minor and E minor chords in a skank rhythm.

That means an off beat rhythm.

So let's practise doing it now together before I send you off.

So we need to be thinking about the ands.

So rather than going, one, two, three, four, we're doing one, and two, and three, and four, and, like this.

Slow the tempo right down to help you.

If you're really struggling to get that off beat feeling, actually just put your instrument down, and do the one and two, three and four and.

Once you're confident with that one, go back onto your instrument.

One and two and three and four and.

And then, for your stretch, is try and do both.

So four beats per chord.

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

So, I'm not strong at the ukulele, so I'll need to practise.

So pause the video to complete your task.

That means practising playing the A minor and E minor chords in a skank off beat rhythm.

If you're finding this too easy, then go off and do that with some other chords that you know, and if you've got a real keyboard, then try and do it with two hands.

See you back here later! Great, so we've now explored some typical reggae rhythms. I hope your skank chord practise went well, mine certainly did.

And we're now going to explore how to play a G major chord on your instrument, because we will need that later to play a chord progression.

So we've just been playing A minor and E minor.

And we're now going to be learning G major.

What is the difference between major and minor? Recap that now.

So major might sound bright, joyful, and happy.

And minor chords sound a bit darker, bit more mysterious, maybe a bit more sad to you.

So example of a minor chord.

Example of a major chord.

Major chord sounds much, much brighter.

So to work out a G major triad, you will need to press one, miss one, press one, miss one, and press one on the keyboard.

What is your first note of your G major triad? You said G, you're correct.

Work out the other two notes now.

That would be B and D, well done if you got those ones correct.

So on the guitar and ukulele, the chords look like this.

Again, be really really careful with your finger numbers.

So finger number one on the guitar and ukulele is your index pointing finger.

I would suggest you use these fingers, 'cause it will make it easier for you to transition to other chords, even if it's not the easiest way to play the chord.

If you're on your virtual keyboard, or on the internet, that's fine, you don't need to use your keyboard one, three, and five, you can do anything that suits you.

You are now going to pause the video, and you're going to work out that G major triad.

You are now going to pause the video, and learn how to play the G major triad.

This should take you about two minutes max.

When you're ready, resume, and then we'll play along with the backing track.

Great.

So you've now learnt your G major triad, and we're now going to practise playing it along to a backing track.

So again, you can do this on technology, or on an instrument.

And you're going to play in that skank rhythm.

Let's remember what that skank rhythm sounds like.

So play with me.

So it's going to be one and two, and three, and four and.

One and two, and three, and four and.

For your stretch, you can try some different strumming patterns.

So for example, one.

Or you could do something like this.

One.

So you can experiment around if you are a guitarist or ukelele player.

If you're on a keyboard, you can try and use two hands.

So, if you are now ready and confident with your G major chord, we are now going to play with a reggae backing track, making sure we're playing in time with the chords, 'cause we are playing a skank rhythm.

Sure your backing track and your chords were sounding absolutely great.

You are now going to rewind if you want to, to practise that again, but if you're confident with that skank rhythm, let's now move on, and think about some recapping.

So how do we play a reggae style rhythm? Do we play on beat, off beat, or sustained notes? If you said off beat, you are correct.

What are the pitches in a G major triad? We learnt it just now.

Use the keyboard to help if you need.

The correct answer is, G, B and D, well done if you got that one correct.

So, we have learnt how to play G major chord, and we're now going to look at a typical reggae chord progression.

So what do we think a chord progression or chord sequence actually is? If you said a repeated pattern of chords, you were correct.

So generally, we'd have three or four chords, and these are repeated throughout a song.

So we're now going to play some chords one after another, in a chord progression, which basically means a set of chords.

So we have got two chords here.

We've got our G chord and our A minor chord.

We've got two chords here.

We've got a G chord and our A minor chord, and these will last for four beats each.

So I'm going to play this on my app for now.

So I'm going to find my G chord.

And my A minor chord.

They're next to each other, so that means it's quite easy for us to play.

So, we're going to count into four, and then you're going to play them one after another.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

Two, three, four.

So with this app, you need to be really careful to press them all at once, it's easier if it's on a flat surface.

So you're now going to just practise that, pause the video, take three minutes to practise switching between the two chords.

So on a ukelele or guitar, you'll need to practise shifting really, really cleanly, because we're going to be playing a more complicated rhythm next.

Pause the video, take two, three minutes, and resume when you're ready.

Okay.

It's now going to get harder.

So we're now going to play a skank rhythn.

So this is again is on this off beat and feeling.

Let's just recap by playing that skank rhythm on our hands.

One on your chest, one in front of you.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

Shall we go a bit slower? One, two, three, four.

One two, three, four.

Now take out your chest sound, so just do this one.

Two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

So have a go now at playing that in the correct rhythm.

I'm going to play with you once.

Then you're going to pause the video.

We ready? One, two, and three, and four.

And one, and two, and three, and.

And one.

Three.

Practise that by yourself, if you need to take a little bit longer, that's fine.

You should take around three to five minutes to practise these two chords, when you're ready, resume the video, and we will play with the backing track.

Okay.

Let's now have a go with that backing track.

So you'll need to listen really carefully for when the chords change, 'cause if you end up getting lost, you'll need to make sure you listen, so you can come back in on the right chord.

So it's quite a long one, so just keep going.

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

G, G.

G.

Now it's A.

G.

A.

I'm going to leave you.

So you've already had a go at playing that with a backing track, but I'd now like you to have another go.

This time, if you found that quite easy before, try some different strumming patterns, and try and play it with both hands.

If you didn't find it that easy, then have another go, so pause the video, rewind it to the backing track, and have another go at playing those two chords at the right time.

Resume the video when you're finished.

So I'm going to play the chords to you in three different ways.

And you're going to tell me which ways I'm playing them in, and which seats reggae better, and why.

So here's way number one.

One and two and three and four and.

Second way.

Two, three, four, one.

And fourth way.

Two, three, four, one.

Okay.

So I played the chords in three different ways.

So I played them legato, which means smooth.

Detached, and sustained.

I said that legato means smooth, sustained means holding the chords down, so they're kind of lasting for a long time.

And detached is when you leave a bit of a gap between them.

So which one do you think suits reggae better and why? So detached suits reggae the best, because that really helps keep that gap and it really helps emphasise those off beat skank rhythms. So you are now going to recap the three chords that you know.

So E minor.

A minor.

As well as G major.

You will need all of these chords for the next task.

So you are now going to pause the video, recap those three chords, and resume when you're ready to do a final performance, along with the backing track.

Make sure you're really great at switching between those chords fluently.

Resume the video when you're ready to move on, you should spend about three minutes recapping those chords.

Okay.

So we're now going to do a new chord progression, this time with three chords.

So, we're going to still have E minor, for four beats, in the second part of our chord progression.

But this time we're going to have G for two beats, A for two beats, and E minor for two beats.

So if I played it normally, it would sound like this.

G, two, A, two, E, two, three, four.

So the first thing you might need to do is practise that.

The second thing is then to practise in a skank rhythm.

If you're doing keyboard, you could do alternate hands to get that rhythm.

Like that.

Or just do with one hand.

So I'm going to play to you you what it's meant to be sounding like.

So one and two, and three, and four, and one, G, G, A, A, E, E, E, four, and one, G, two, G, three, A, three, one.

So reggae musicians wouldn't necessarily be reading this off a notated music, they would just really feel that skank, off beat rhythm.

So the best way to do this really, is to do this along with a backing track.

Pause the video if you need, to have a bit of a practise of this now.

Great.

So this means that you're ready to do it with the track.

Keep on going, going to help you out for the first bit, and then you are going to finish it off.

One, two, three, four.

G.

A.

E.

So that was some fantastic work.

Well done.

We're going to see that as a dress rehearsal, 'cause the final thing you're going to do today, is perform, again, with this reggae band, and I'd like you to try and get together an audience.

So make sure you're watching out for those chords that last only two beats.

So that was G and A minor.

You might want to have another time to practise a bit more slowly, and get an audience together, and show this to your family, 'cause I think they'd really like to see what you are doing.

So what I'm going to do now, I'm going to leave you to pause the video, get someone together, to watch you play, and then I'm going to play the backing track one final time, for you to play along with.

Making sure that you are doing A for two beats, G for two beats, and E minor for four beats.

Let's go with the backing track.

I'm going to count you in.

One, two, three, four.

Great job, I hope your audience enjoyed it hugely.

We're now going to go back to our key question.

How do chords help us to identify reggae? Choose the correct sentences from the ones below, there are four correct sentences, and remove the ones that are incorrect.

Pause the video and resume when you are ready to check your answers.

Lovely, let's now check our answers.

So the ones that were incorrect are, reggae chords are played on the beat, not correct.

They're played off the beat.

Typical chord sequence uses chords that are far away from each other.

No, because the reggae chord sequence we used, the chords were pretty close.

The rhythm of the chords makes the music faster.

Doesn't make it any faster, the tempo's exactly the same.

It makes it more energetic though.

The reggae chords are played in a skunk rhythm.

Not true, because skunk is an animal, skank rhythm is correct.

So the four correct sentences are, they're played in a skank rhythm, they use chords next to each other, the chords are played off beat, and the rhythm of the chords gives the music energy.

Well done for your excellent work today on reggae.

I hope you go away and try and listen to some.

I hope you go away and listen to some Etana, or Matisyahu, or Bob Marley, and be really curious about reggae music.

You could even try and play some reggae songs! Take care.

Don't forget to do the quiz to show off all the great knowledge you have learnt today, and see you next time.

Bye.