Take it Easy!–You’ve been practicing a lot. You’ve studied hard. You took your music theory exams over the weekend! Now it’s time to take it easy. We’ll take it easy this week. Let me introduce you to my new “find”. CMajor found a book called Winning Rhythms*. I wanted to find something fun that I could do with you over the radio. I think this might be it. Shall we give it a try on tomorrow’s broadcast? Get out your rhythm shakers, egg shakers, other shakers…lol. It’ll be fun. See the homework description below.
For this week’s homework we are playing around with rhythms. So far we’ve talked about time values and time signatures. Let’s see if we can put some more of your knowledge to use. You’ve already clapped rhythms to CMajor’s tune Gut Feeling (#GutFeelinginthekeyofAm). We used Latin Percussion Chicka Shakers in the last after-show. You’re just starting out so we’ll tap out rhythms together. If you require a more advanced application just let me know and I’ll assign something a bit more challenging for you.
- You’ll need a ruler to draw a straight line across a blank piece of paper.
- You’ll need a pencil or pen to draw in the time values.
- Draw four horizontal lines. Put enough space between the lines.
- Draw four measures on each line.
- Place a time signature of 4/4 at the beginning of each line.
- Number the lines 1-4 or A-D.
- Listen to tomorrow’s CMajor Radio Show to find out the order of the time values that will be written on the lines. Listen to the After Show to go over the homework in more detail.
- We’ll practice clapping and counting the rhythm together.
See you soon!
*Winning Rhythms is a winning approach to rhythm skill development for all ages & all instruments by Edward L. Ayola. Winning Rhythms is a self-paced, step-by-step method for teaching rhythm concepts. It works well in conjunction with the study of any musical instrument, or by itself for independent practice. Edward L. Ayola was born and raised in Joliet, Illinois. He was a member of the bands under the direction of Mr. Charles S. Peters, Mr. A.R. McA
llister, and Mr. Bruce Houseknecht. Mr. Ayola played for six years in Army Bands and graduated from the Navy School of Music in Washington D.C. His bachelor of music education degree came from the University of Tulsa, Tulsa, Oklahoma. He was Principal Tuba in the Tulsa Philharmonic Orchestra. Soon after, he attended Vandercook College of Music in Chicago and received his master of music education degree.
CMajor's Classroom 