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Understanding Rhythm
Rhythm is everywhere: it is in the beat of your heart, in the thumping of the off-balance loads at the laudromat, and in the patterns of singing crickets and frogs in the evening. For this reason, it is not always easy to train oneself to hear rhythms. In this lesson I will try to give you a few hints for learning rhythms naturally so that you may better hear them in music.
Even though rhythms can be extremely complex, the number one thing we need to do right away is try and break them into two main categories, even at the risk of oversimplification. The two main types of rhythm we will classify are duple (two beat rhythm) and triple (three beat rhythm).
Duple refers to where the accent is, or every two beats.
Imagine you have gotten up way too early in the morning and accidentally put on one heavy boot and on the other foot your bath slipper. When you try to walk, your feet will sound like this:
ONE two ONE two ONE two ONE two
Most military songs and marches are naturally in duple rhythm.
Triple refers to an accent every three beats.
ONE two three ONE two three ONE two three ONE two three
Triple rhythms were used heavily in dances of past centuries. All minuets and waltzes are in triple. But to find the ultimate example of triple rhythm, you need to look no further than your own heart!! Hearts beat in fast three, like this:
BUMP bump rest BUMP bump rest BUMP bump rest BUMP bump rest
No matter what time signature your music shows, you can now presume that you will be dealing with duple or triple. For even if we count a song in four beats, that song is really in duple meter, as four can be divided into two and two. Even though odd rhythms like 7/4 exist, we can still break them down into their smaller components.
The next step is to see if you can tell which songs you hear in your everyday life are in duple and which songs are in triple. Here are some examples:
Duple
Eine Kleine Nachtmusik by Mozart
Pokarekare Ana (folk song)
Jingle Bells
Most pop and modern rock music
Military marches
Triple
All Minuets: famous example is J.S. Bach Minuet in G
All Waltzes: famous example is The Blue Danube Waltz by Johann Strauss
Brahm's Lullaby
Scottish and Irish Jigs