Lesson video

Hello, and welcome to lesson two in this Songs for a Better World unit.

In today's lesson, we are going to be answering the question, what tempo, metre and rhythm choices did John Lennon make in creating the song "Imagine"? We're going to be doing lots of performing, composing, listening, and appraising, so we've got lots of fun activities in the next hour or so.

Without further ado, let's take a look at what we'll need to be successful in today's lesson.

In this lesson, you will need a piece of paper, and a pencil to make notes with.

You'll also need your voice, or instrument, or access to an online app or instrument, or digital audio workstation, such as Bandlab.

This lesson is better with headphones, but it's not required.

If you need to pause the video to get of these things that you see on screen, or find a quiet space to work in.

Please do so now, and press play when you are ready to continue.

Warm-up activity.

We're going to listen to John Lennon's "Imagine".

But each time we hear it, it's going to be at a different tempo.

Remember that the word tempo refers to the speed of the music.

After hearing the extracts, answer question one and two.

What is the musical effect? And how does it make you feel? We will then hear the song in its original tempo.

Using our knowledge of the song so far, it's lyrics and its context, write two sentences answering question three.

Why do you think John Lennon chose the tempo he did? ♪ Imagine all the people, ♪ ♪ Living for today, ahhh, ahhh.

♪ ♪ Imagine there's no country, ♪ ♪ It's hard to do.

♪ And now "Imagine" at tempo two.

♪ Imagine there's no heaven.

♪ ♪ It's easy if you try.

♪ ♪ No hell below us, ♪ And we can now answer question one and two.

What is the musical effect? And how does it make you feel? You're free to pause the video here, while you answer those questions.

And press play when you're ready to continue.

And here is "Imagine" at its original tempo.

♪ Imagine all the people, ♪ ♪ Living life in peace.

♪ ♪ You, who, oo oo.

♪ And now we can answer the question, why do you think John Lennon chose the tempo he did? Again, feel free to pause the video while you answer that question.

And click play when you're ready to move on.

"Imagine" tempo.

Tempo is the speed of music, how fast or slow the pulse is.

Tempo is measured in BPM, or beats per minute.

Different genres make use of different tempi.

For example, most pop songs fall within the 110 to 149 bracket.

Lots of Dubstep, or drum and base are over that 140 BPM mark.

And Hip-Hop sits somewhere between 110 and 140.

Tempo can define a genre.

You won't get a fast Rock Ballad, or a slow Disco tune.

And today, producers of dance music are quite strict in the tempo they use.

This makes it easier to DJ at events, and easier to dance to as well.

Now, "Imagine" by John Lennon is at 75 BPMs. So that's fairly slow, and falls within that bracket of the Rock Ballad.

If we were to use more western classical terminology, we could call this Adagio, which is anywhere between 66 BPM and 76 BPM.

Moderato falls between that 98 to 112 bracket.

And Allegro is up there with Dubstep at around 140 BPM.

"Imagine" metre.

Metre is the organisation of rhythms into regular patterns of strong and weak beats, or into bars.

Most popular music is in the four, four.

Although it's not uncommon to have songs in other time signatures such as three, four or 12, eights.

Now, just as a recap, when I say four, four, it means four crotchet beats in a bar.

So this first number refers to how many beats, and the second number refers to what kind of beat.

So, if it was a four, it would be crotchet, an eight would be quaver.

Some bars have experimented with using irregular time signatures, such as seven, four.

Now as we know, John Lennon chose to play "Imagine" in four, four.

So we're going to listen to that now.

And what I want us to do is clap on the downbeat.

So the downbeat is beat one.

So, one , two, three, four, one , two, three four, one , two, three, four.

But, as we've just found out, "Imagine" is in a much slower tempo.

So, I'll leave it up to you for a few bars, to find the tempo yourself, and clap on beat one.

And then I'll join in and help you count as well.

So let's get that going right now.

♪ Imagine there's no heaven, ♪ I'll give you a countdown.

So one, two, three, four.

♪ No hell below us♪ Good, four, one two, , three , four.

One , two , three , four.

One , two , three , four.

, , , Good, well done.

You may have found it easier when the drums came in.

And we'll talk about this at a later date.

But that is one of the important roles of a drummer.

To help us stay in time and also highlight where the downbeats of the music is.

Let's see this in a different song.

Although having a sense of where the downbeat is, is crucial, not all songs have an accent on beat one.

As musicians, we should always be counting.

Now we're going to be listening to a song by Bob Marley.

And I'm going to ask you to clap on different beats of the bar.

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

One, four, one , four, one.

Two and three, , , , , , , One and three.

, , ,.

So what if "Imagine" was in a different time signature? By now we're used to hearing it in four, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, four.

One, two, three, exc etra, exc etra.

But what if I played it in three, four? One, two, three, One, two, three, One, two, three, One, two, three.

How does the time signature change the mood? Write two sentences, pause the video here, and press play when you're ready to continue.

Now let's try singing in this new time signature.

Now because we've removed a whole beat of the bar, we're going to have to change the rhythm of the melody and the words.

I'll play a loop of the verse and would like you to just experiment singing at home, and try to change the rhythm, and make it fit.

After about four repetitions, I will hum along what I would do as a suggested rhythm, and you can sing along to that.

So here we go, after three.

One, two, three.

And we'll stop it there.

Quite challenging, right? But its interesting to hear how different the rhythm would be if we changed the metre.

If you know a popular song on the piano or an instrument, it might be interesting to see if you can change the time signature and remove one of the beats and still make it work.

Good work.

Let's analyse the rhythmic features of the verse together.

You will then analyse the rhythmic features of the pre-chorus yourselves.

So, let's start with the vocal part.

The first thing that I notice is that we don't actually start on beat one.

We have a rest.

So we're starting on the offbeat.

I can also see that we have a rest in bars two and bar four as well.

Now the rest, will give time for the singer, or in this case John Lennon, to breath, but also, it means we can hear very clearly, probably the most rhythmically interesting parts of the verse, and that's the semi-quaver pattern in the piano.

And this is the same in bar two and bar four.

This stressing of the offbeat occurs in both par- both bars of the singing.

We have the syncopation in the vocal parts as well.

So we have that sort of emphasis on the offbeats.

And that is how it's along by starting on beat, and that's helped by not starting on beat one.

The piano part is very, very simple, apart from the semi-quaver pattern I said earlier.

We just have crotchets and quavers in the right hand, in the left hand we have a very simple dotted minim and crotchet figure.

Take five minutes to study the score below in the same fashion.

And list four rhythmic features.

You might find it useful to analyse the voice and the piano separately.

And to do it bar by bar.

Many of the features that we've discussed in the verse are also present in the pre-chorus.

And there are definitely some extra points that you can talk about.

Pause the video, so you can analyse the score for as long as you would like.

But I recommend five minutes.

And then press play when you are ready to continue.

So, I've put the verse and the pre-chorus up on the screen.

And I've just listed four points that you may have got.

So, we've talked about the vocals not starting on beat one.

That is also true in the pre-chorus.

There was also syncopation in bars three and four of the pre-chorus.

We talked about the very simple rhythm in the piano accompaniment.

We just have crotchets in the right hand of the piano in the pre-chorus.

But we also do have this dotted rhythm pattern, which sounds like this.

Which does build some momentum.

However, in that fourth bar of the pre-chorus, we just have a sustained chord, which brings it nice and simple.

And again, having a very simple rhythm in that piano part, means that we can get some nice rhythmic interests and hear it very clearly in the vocal part.

We have the syncopation and that four lane pattern on the ah, ha.

"Imagine" tasks.

Task one, find three pop songs with uncommon time signatures.

Look for pop song ballads in three, four 12, eight, and seven, four.

Task two, "Imagine" inspired melody.

Write a melody inspired by the tempo, metre, and rhythmic ideas from "Imagine".

You can do this with your voice.

You can do this on a piano or keyboard, or using an online instrument or digital audio workstation.

Task three, playing the accompaniment.

Using a keyboard, app or instrument, play the bass line and chords.

You can play these separately, if you would like to.

That brings us to the end of this lesson.

I hope that you have enjoyed it.

And that you enjoyed these three tasks on screen.

Make sure to spend enough time on these tasks.

The first research task should take between five and ten minutes.

Writing a melody might take between 20 and 30 minutes.

And playing the accompaniment.

And playing the accompaniment might, um, I could say, and don't worry if task three takes you even longer than today.

You can just keep practising until you get it perfect.

I hope to see you in the next lesson.

Well done for your hard work.

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