Author: Rachel Wells Hall
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Friendship (to every willing mind)
221b FRIENDSHIP is one of the few folk melodies in A Supplement to the Kentucky Harmony that has a well known, secular source—it was written by George Frederick Handel for his 1736 opera Atalanta. Sometime in the sixty years after its first performance, the melody acquired English words that are attributed to a “Mr. Bidwell, of Connecticut”…
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200 Years of Bourbon
One of the joys—and sometimes frustrations—of choosing songs for The Shenandoah Harmony was the often overwhelming number of different shape-note arrangements available for the same song. BOURBON (13t), which has been in print since 1814, is a classic example. We chose two different settings of the melody (13t BOURBON and 260t CONFLICT) plus two closely related…
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Tāla in Carnatic Classical Music
Carnatic classical music from south India uses a collection of rhythmic structures called tālas. Each tāla is cyclic and organizes time in a particular way, including the number of beats per cycle. In this video, the performer’s hand gestures indicate the tāla. These same gestures could accompany any piece using this tāla. Compare also the hand gestures used in the American tradition of shape-note singing and this…
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James Brown’s Groove
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SV95pdw3pDw James Brown, “The Godfather of Soul,” discusses grooves in his music in this 2005 interview with Terry Gross of NPR (starting around 3:00). He compares two versions of the “I Got You” groove. He also describes how his groove shifted with his 1965 song “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag.”
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Knee Play 1 by Philip Glass
Philip Glass wrote Knee Play 1 for his 1976 opera “Einstein on the Beach.” Glass has said that numbers were sung to help the chorus learn the difficult rhythm patterns. He intended to eventually replace them with other lyrics, but changed his mind.
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Led Zeppelin’s “Kashmir”
The guitar and drums play what’s called a 3-against-4 polyrhythm in Led Zeppelin’s 1975 song “Kashmir.” To practice it, count “ONE TWO three” with the guitar while a friend counts “one two THREE four” with the drums. The upper case letters indicate claps and the lower case letters indicate taps or silence. The resulting pattern repeats after…
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Flamenco clapping music
Flamenco is a dance form from Andalusia, Spain that is associated with the Roma peoples. Here is an explanation of the rhythm patterns and a demonstration of clapping.
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Clapping Music
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T3qS3oc_tK4 Steve Reich’s “Clapping Music” uses a single repeated rhythm pattern. The two players start by clapping the 12-beat pattern together in unison. After eight measures, one performer shifts the pattern forward by one beat and they clap the new pattern for eight measures. This process is continued until the two patterns align again. Here’s…