probably cut out because of copyright issues but it's a kind

of fun warm-up anyway, so we're going to go ahead and

do this and then we'll actually start.

I got about a one-minute warm-up here,

ladies and gentlemen, and we've got Lynda Paul who's

like a Vegas show act.

Okay?

She's going to warm us up and we're going to get up and we're

going to get into it here right off the bat in our exploration

of duple and triple meter so here we go, Lynda Paul.

Lynda Paul: All right.

Those of you in my section will already be familiar with this.

Don't give the game away.

Everybody stand up.

Sorry.

Prof: It'll be worth it.

Lynda Paul: It's worth it.

All right.

You have two moves.

For the duple meter, you have the march.

You may have to turn to the side.

Prof: It's okay.

They can march.

Lynda Paul: And it just goes like this,

Feel the duple.

Prof: Which foot gets the down beat,

right or left?

Lynda Paul: Left.

Always left.

Prof: Okay.

Sorry.

Didn't know.

Lynda Paul: And if you hear a triple,

your step is this: down-up-up, down-up-up,

down- up-up, down-up-up.

This is to get the feel of the duple and the triple.

So see what you can do.

Prof: You can do this on your test too.

>

They've got it.

>

Okay. We got that.

>

Okay.

So that's our warm-up for today.

Now from the ridiculous to the sublime, we're going to go to

our first slide.

And that takes us to the question of sound.

We have never really nailed this down, I don't think.

When an instrument--any instrument--the piano,

plays a note <<plays note>>

what you hear is one fundamental pitch.

You are also hearing very small amounts of other pitches.

Usually, these get charted out into the so-called overtones,

thirty-two partials or overtones, and you can see them

playing out here .

The amount of force in each of those partials--

we'll call it the amplitude--of each of the partials,

varies according to the acoustical properties of a

particular instrument, so that each of these peaks

here represents a particular partial,

but you can see that they do not decline in any kind of

straight decline.

Some of them bump up from time to time--more push there,

more volume there.

So when we hear any particular sound,

again, we're hearing an amalgam of many sounds,

and the importance of each of these partials in the aggregate

of sound is what gives it its particular color.

If you've ever worked with a synthesizer: I think,

in very simple terms here, what an electronic synthesizer

does is play with these.

They can push down the seventh partial.

They can bring up the ninth partial.

They can push down the^( )thirteenth partial and bring up

the fifteenth and thereby change the sound of a clarinet into a

French horn.

They play with these partials on each of these notes,

but this is just <<plays note>>

one sound with all of these other things mixed in to the

medley that produces the quality or timbre of a particular

instrument.

Okay. That's that point.

Now we're going to go on and review a few things that we

talked about last lecture.

Remember we were talking about beat, which is the regular

pulse, the pulse of life, the pulse of music,

that comes at regular intervals.

We were talking about the subdivision of that pulse,

the organizing of that pulse into meters,

and that we had this capacity to indicate what the meter was

by these numbers: two-four,

and three-four for duple and triple meter.

Remember we were just demonstrating,

listening to the Ravel Bolero.

Then we had rhythms superimposed.

We had two prominent rhythms up above.

Rhythm is simply these patterns, usually repeating

patterns, of longs and short that get superimposed as they

set up above the basic beat underneath.

We also learned from Ravel's Bolero that nobody

actually plays the beat-- that's too basic--but our mind,

hearing all of these complex rhythms,

extrapolates the beat from this complexity.

Okay, that by way of a quick review.

Now two other terms that we have touched on.

What's tempo in music?

Yes, gentleman?

Student: The pace or the speed of the piece?

Prof: It's the pace or speed of the--

Student: Piece.

Prof: --of the piece, particularly the beat.

The beat will do--control--that,

so it's the pace or speed of the beat.

Thanks very much.

We can take a particular--Here I'm conducting in three:

one, two, three, one,

two, three, one, two,

three, one, two, three, one, two,

three, and obviously I'm accelerating

there.

We use the fancy Italian term "accelerando"

for that.

We could be going with a very fast tempo, three,

one, two, three, one, two, three,

one, two, three, and slow it down.

Obviously, we would be retarding the music,

ritardando or a retard at that particular point.

All right.

With that by the way of background, let's go on to

two--what we might call rhythmic devices here--two rhythmic

devices.

The first is syncopation.

We worked a little bit with this last time.

For syncopation, let's go to the board over

here.

If we have a particular rhythm, and this is a rhythm,

and here are the beats and the meter underneath,

we would be coming along one, two-and,

one, two,>.

Okay.

Obviously, this is the bar of syncopation--we did this in

section last week--but you can see >

this note is the syncopated note.

It's jumping in too early.

We expect it to sound there.

So what syncopation is is simply the insertion of an

impulse, a "hit" if you will,

at a metrical place that we do not expect it to be.

Usually, the metrical impulse is on the beat.

With syncopation the impulse can come suddenly off the beat,

and it gives it a little snap or jazzy aspect to the music.

We talked about that in the Cole Porter last time.

Here is one I remember.

A couple of years ago there was a clothing store called TJ Maxx.

They had this little jingle out there, >

, just a little bit of this, and then you were supposed to

say, "TJ Maxx."

I'll remember TJ Maxx forever because of this guy's little

syncopation.

It's in there.

We really remember these musical .

Think about back in your childhood, your nursery rhymes,

the capacity of aural material to be retained.

Okay.

>

Here's beat two.

It jumps in too early.

This actually I think derives from a Greek word,

"synkope," s-y-n-k-o-p-e,

synkope.

Is that how you pronounce it?

But it means to cut short, to cut short and therefore get

in a little bit earlier.

Now the master of syncopation, of course, in music was Scott

Joplin, African American composer writing a lot around

the area of St.

Louis in the turn of the twentieth century.

You know his music from pieces such as "The

Entertainer," so let's play just a little bit

of "The Entertainer" very slowly,

and my question to you is: where is the syncopation?

Is it in the left hand of the piano or in the right hand of

the piano?

Is it in the bass or the melody?

>

Where's the syncopation?

Left hand? Right hand?

Right hand.

Bass is just going--Well, what is the bass going?

>

In that fashion, one--It's playing eighth notes,

one-and, two-and; it's subdividing the beat

whereas the syncopation >

--it's there, >

and so on.

So you're tapping your foot.

You're tapping the beat and a lot of the music is coming off

the beat.

Let's see if we can do that.

Let's see if we can create our own syncopated orchestra in

here.

We've got an example up here.

This is the conception of it.

Let's see if we can actually execute it.

What I'd like you to do: Everybody tap your foot.

We're going to do this in four, just for--just because I think

it works out better so everybody tap your foot with a four beat.

Here we go.

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

three, four, nice and loud.

Come on. I want to hear it.

Okay.

Now take your hand on a chair or your notebook,

your computer or whatever, and do syncopation off of that

according to this pattern.

One, two, ready, go.

>

Okay. Good.

I see Daniel down here has got this nailed.

Okay.

So that's what syncopation is and it isn't much more difficult

than that.

The second rhythmic device that we have to be aware of in music

we frequently encounter is this concept of the triplet.

Now most music that we listen to--and here's a good example

because it plays it out so clearly in the melody--

most music that we listen to takes the beat--

one, two, one, two--and subdivides it into

two: one-and, two-and--musicians like this

"and" business--

one-and, two-and, one-and, two-and--

So each quarter note has two eighth notes.

We could also take the two eighth notes and divide them

into two sixteenth notes and then we get a-one-a-and,

a-two-a-and, a-one-a-and,

a-two-a-and something like that.

>

>

But of course most music--although it operates that

way--not all music continues in that fashion.

Oftentimes--occa sionally--occasionally,

oftentimes, somewhere between the two--the beat is divided

into three.

So what I've got here is an example of that.

It's actually what we call "My Country 'Tis Of

Thee" I think, >

, so that's it.

I think it's been set by a number of composers over the

years.

Beethoven set it under the heading of "God Save the

King," George the Third or somebody.

No, George the Third was probably dead by then.

Who was the king of England, let's say, in 1810?

Who knows that answer?

I don't know it.

George the Third would have been dead.