 Hi everyone, this is Jason here from Nathaniel and in today's lesson. We are going to look at some rhythm concepts so Get your books ready get your pianos ready and let's get started. We also have a Zoom meeting group Which I've put a link in the description It'll be great if any of you wants to join you could be part of the class you could join in you can also Ask me questions and I can also see people other than myself and a few others currently Right, so do join soon if you'd like if not follow the Video get your books out and let's practice some rhythmic stuff. Okay, I Hope you guys can hear my piano good And my voice Great good to go right So we are going to look at rhythm basically how to count various kinds of rhythm and Today in today's class It's going to be Maybe not so long because otherwise rhythm will take a heck of a lot of time We'll focus on one kind of rhythm. Okay, so we'll try to focus on eighth note rhythms So, what do we mean by this stuff? What do we mean by eighth note? rhythms eighth note rhythm rhythms in in my book tend to divide the beat Into two okay, so when you divide the beat into two equal units The first thing you can decide is how you want to divide it Let me just explain this on the guitar that may be of some more help So if I take a couple of chords on the guitar And if I play them like this One two three four one two Basically right now I am playing on the pulse. I'm playing each note on the pulse How do I improve that a bit? I could improve that by dividing the beat The first thing we could do to divide the beat is to basically divide by two So if we divide by two it'll end up sounding as right So you go one two Three four, so if you observe I'm playing two notes for every pulse. So if I move my head one two three four one two I'm playing two chord hits for every one pulse movement So this is what we call a square verse eighth notes Dividing by two etc and on a guitar It's quite easy to generate this because I'm going one downstroke And then one upstroke. So I go one two three four one two three four and a great way to count this is to say something like this one and two and three and Four and right so the and signifies the on beat Sorry, the and signifies the off beat all those ends the end of the one the end of the two and of the three and of the four Signifies the off beats while the one two three four signifies the on beat Okay, so if I play this for you and count one two three four One and two and three and four and that's how you want to say it as a player One and two and three and four and one and two and three, right? And two and three so you could focus on specific So the a great practice would be to focus a bit more on the ends the off beats and give them a bit more emphasis for example So what did I do now I stressed a bit more on the end another thing you could try to do Especially on the guitar. It's easy to show you and then I'll try to move to the piano, of course. So if I go Just muted notes, okay, just basically muted notes And I could count One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one You could focus on specific beats which you'd like to play like maybe the one which is quite easy What I like about the guitar is it gives you this sort of ghost like sound so the sound Keeps going on while on a piano. You can't really do that on a piano You have to be like one and two and three and four and one two and three and four and one So you're pretty much going to choose specific hit points on the piano We're gonna come to all this in the lesson I'm just gonna give you an overview of what we are trying to do. So again We are going to try and count one and two and three and four and and try to say the ends a lot louder With more emphasis or with a little bit of a higher pitch if you will you could count something like this One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four And one two three, right? So that's the basis. So using this we can develop certain hit points like for example If you'd like to just play on the one the end of the two and the on of the four This could be a great thing to start practicing off You know right away. So if we are trying to focus on the one the end of the two and the on of the four What's going to happen in that instance? It's going to be One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four. What am I doing? I'm tapping the one the end of the two and the on of the four. Let's do that again One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four Right, this is also what we call as the tresio rhythm. It's a very popular rhythm used in latin music music. It's called Thresio rhythm. I've done a lot of videos on the Thresio rhythm. You can go to a playlist on YouTube called rhythm chops. I may not be able to share it right now because I'm teaching, but do check out the playlist called rhythm chops. We cover all these sort of things, Latin rhythms and a lot of grooves and stuff like that. Okay, Thresio also, all of these rhythms can be notated, right? So it'll be something like one and two and rest at the three and then on of the four. You could count it like this. Okay, one and two and three and four and to put things into perspective. If you follow this up with let's say two minims, if you follow this up with basically what do those two minims mean? The two minims means that the note lasts for two beats or for two counts. So one and two and three and four and one and two and three. You see, it gets a bit lazier here. So at these minims. So let's count this together. One, two, try and clap now. One and two and three and four and one, two, three, four, one and two and three and four and one, two, three, four. Okay, so this is just a introduction. We are going to really get to this and explore the eight note counting as best as we can. Okay, so if there are any questions, do type them in the chat. You can also join the zoom call. I've put the link in the comment. If not, if you have any questions, do let us know in the comments or just follow along with your instrument. Okay, so now moving on, I'm just going to look at the piano a little bit, the guitar a little bit. I'll try to demonstrate this on as many instruments as possible. And let's see where we can go from there. Okay. So I want you to first understand the concept of how rhythm patterns are generally built. Right, when you divide the beat into two equal units, when you divide the beat into two equal units, what you're ending up doing is you have two slots to fill. Agreed, you have two slots to fill for each respective beat. You have the on beat, right, or the down beat, and you have the upbeat or the off beat. So there are two kinds of ways, two kinds of beats basically, you have the on and you have the off on off. So one permutation could be to play both beats, the on beat and the off beat. So you could be doing a tick at the on and the tick at the off. The other option you can do is to do a cross or don't play the on, play only the off. The other opportunity you can have is to play the on beat, but do not play the off beat. And finally, play nothing. I've put two crosses indicating that you play nothing. But the beat is being divided into two units. This is the one and this is the and. So if we have to notate this using western notation, you have notation symbols for each of these, don't we? Tick tick would involve two quavers. Two quavers basically one and. So you're playing two beats, two notes and one beat basically. Okay, x tick is going to be a quaver rest and then a quaver x tick. So nothing, something. Okay, and then tick x, you can actually simplify by just writing down a quarter note or a crotchet. You could also write down a quaver and a quaver rest if you'd like, but I just prefer to go with this. It's a bit easy on the I okay, and it serves the purpose. The last is nothing. So you could end up putting a rest. Okay, so these are all the four permutations or binary permutations if you will, of dividing the beat into two units. How do we say binary permutations two to the part two, right, where basically the power is to show you how much the beat is being divided by. So once we get into dividing the beat by three into three equal units, it's going to be two part three, and thus it'll be eight possibilities, right? I'm sure some of you would remember this from a computer class. I'm sure you have learned at least binary permutations, right, that even I can say I learned. Okay, so moving on to dividing by two, you have these opportunities. So these are the four rhythms you're going to get when you divide the beat by two. And when you play these rhythms and when you perform these rhythms, you can perform them in two ways. You can perform them straight, and you can perform them swung. Let me just demonstrate the difference between the two swing could also be termed as shuffle in some cultures. Okay, again, I'll try and demonstrate this on the guitar. Hi, hi, everyone. Thanks for watching. I can see your comments. Thanks a ton. And do stay tuned till the end of the lesson, we're going to end up doing a lot. And this lesson is sort of improvised, if you will, but it's based on eighth note counting. Okay, so if you try and do straight music, it's going to be one and two and three and four. And for example, however, if you take the same thing and do it swung, it's going to sound like this. You still can count one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three, right? Two, three, four, one and two and three and four and one and two and just to show you so that swing and coming to our straight, you can do a few comparisons by maybe taking a song which is straight and maybe perhaps swinging it, like for example, let me just show you that on the keyboard very quickly. So if you take this rhythm, so beat it is actually on a straight feel, isn't it? It's so how do we count that one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one two and riffing now. So a song like beat it is basically straight, however, you could swing it. Now, that will definitely annoy a lot of people, but this is just to illustrate the concept where it could go. See what's happening there. We've actually sort of swung it, if you will. So that's the difference between straight and swing. So far in this lesson, we have basically covered what is an eighth note, what is an eighth note rhythm, an eighth note basically divides the beat into two equal units or swung, if you will, where you go one and two and three and four and or you go one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and okay. And then you have two ways of looking at it. You can decide to hit on certain points of the bar. You can hit at the one, you can hit at the end and the four, this forms a thresio or else you could develop these sort of rhythm tools, what I also call as rhythmic devices. So these are what I call as rhythmic devices. So let's try and put this stuff together now on the piano and maybe even on the guitar. If there are any guitar players watching do send me a comment and I will definitely try to demonstrate this on the guitar, but the guitar is a very good instrument for demonstration because when you go down it's immediately the downbeat and whenever you go up it's immediately the upbeat or the offbeat, if you will. So let's now try and build a bunch of rhythm patterns using all the devices we have. What are the devices on, on, on and no off, off and no on and then of course nothing, pretty much nothing. So I'm just going to try and use these rhythm patterns and build my music accordingly. So let's see how it goes. The first thing you could consider doing could be just a combo of maybe divide by two, don't divide, divide by two, don't divide. So that's pretty much the first thing you could consider. Now do we have a bar of four going on? I guess we do. We have a bar of four and one might argue that this is four by four. That's four crotchets of four of these guys in a bar. That's what four by four means. It means there are four crotchets or quarter notes as some people call it in a bar. This divides the, divides the beat into two units. This particular beat divides it into two units. This doesn't divide. This divides by two and this does, does not divide. So how do we count this again? Let me try and figure this out for you on the piano by taking maybe the note E as some of you who've learned from me before with my videos may know. I'm not a huge fan of C major, unfortunately. So I tend to not want to do on C. Yes, I will definitely show on guitar as well, Motox motivation. And again, a reminder for anyone who's watching, if you haven't subscribed to the channel, it'll be awesome if you can subscribe to the channel because I'll be hoping to do a lot of lessons. I would also encourage your feedback on what I can teach you moving forward. And that'll be an awesome interaction with all of us, right? So do consider subscribing and also hit the bell icon whenever we go live or put up a new video, you'll get a notification. So if I take maybe E, and if my goal is to figure out this rhythm, so a good thing to do on the piano could be something like this and keep all your five fingers ready and waiting. E F sharp G sharp A B E G F sharp G sharp A B Okay. Hi, Mateo. It's good to see you. It's good to see some of the guys who've joined in on the zoom call. Whoever wants to join in, you're very free to join in. I would love to see people's faces that makes, see, I'm immediately teaching better because I can see Mateo's face. So it's great that you joined. Okay. So now I'm doing these five notes, you could keep your five fingers held on on the instrument and let's first count the first rhythm. Okay. So one way to say this is in Indian conical we could say So what does this mean? It basically means I have two in one beat. Tha means I have one note in one beat. So I'm just going to play you the exercise on the keyboard and then you guys could try it out and then we'll flip things around and see how it goes. So basically you could take any of these five notes and do permutations around those five notes. So you could do something like that could work. Okay. Another way to do this is if you're not sure of the first five notes or if you're finding it a little bit uncomfortable, you could just take three notes and do the same drill or that and do different permutations. Okay. You could even go down. So basically what I'm trying to do here is I'm trying to build music using this rhythm pattern. Okay. And on the piano, since you have the other hand free, what can the other hand do? The other hand could produce the pulse. The other hand can play the pulse. So it could be two and three and four and one and two and right and four and one and so let's try and get a melody going. So I'm just trying to choose one of these five notes, something like so that's the basic structure. And now you can obviously make this a bit more interesting. What can we do in the next section or in the next bar? Maybe you could stack up the divides and stack up the don't divide. Basically you're trying to flip it and trying to do it in different permutations. So well, let's just write down the permutations. I keep using this word permutations. Maybe I should reduce that word a bit, but it basically means that you're trying to look at all the options which are available mathematically. So if the options available are four or eight, make a note of them, write them down and practice them. And the more options you have, it actually adds to your creativity and it will allow you to do a lot more on your instrument. So what's the other permutation we have? We can do this sort of a thing. You have a lot of options actually. So if I just take these four options for the class, so let's now work on this option, shall we? Let's now work on this particular option. So this is daba, daba, da, da, daba, daba, da, da. Agreed? Daba, daba, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. So what can you do here? Let me give you another option. Let's just keep adding options. Why don't we just make this whole thing a bit bluesy? So if I have to build a blues scale, I will come back to that. Let's take the blues scale. So if we have to build a blues scale, it's going to be root, minor third, perfect fourth, tritone or the blue note, perfect fifth, and the minor seventh. This is basically the blues scale and the E blues will be what now? If you want the octave. So now I'm going to superimpose that rhythm over the scale. What is the rhythm again? Daba, daba, da, da. Let's try and do that. Write it again. So it's good to vocalize this. It's good to vocalize it and internalize it before you practice. So daba, daba, da, da, daba, daba, da, da, daba, try to say it with me. Daba, daba, da, da. Or in India we say, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta, ta. So what do I do on the blues scale? So you could also now simplify it. Do a minimum there. So you kind of relax the music. So let's see how these two things sound together. Shall we? And mind you, this is all on a four by four. If I'm not mistaken, you're dividing, basically counting four beats in a bar. So if you're improvising on the blues, look at what my left hand's doing. My left hand's basically playing pretty much just the pulse. So you're doing, these could also so easily be chords. These could actually be chord rhythms. So if you actually do another rhythm now, let me play, let me notate another eight note rhythm. So now I hope things are getting easier and easier for you people. Let me know how you think. If you're having any doubts, text them in the comments, please. So this is going to be da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, agreed. I hope this one, right? Da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. Something like that. Now what can we do? Let me try and demonstrate this maybe on another instrument, which is the guitar, which I have missed. So let's do that rhythm again. So we go. So if I do this on, let's say the E minor chord. Oh, so I do. This rhythm is what I'm trying to do. Let me break this down better. One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and two. So you could do this with chords or you could do it with down and up strokes on your guitar. So many things, isn't it? It could be a chord pattern. It could be just a scale thing. It could just be a scale exercise. For example, if you're a keyboard player practicing the major scale, let's pull in another rhythm into the piece. Let's do this. Again, I'm just flipping things around. So I've just used two rhythms. What am I doing here? Da, da, da, da, da. Okay, you could actually take a major scale. Let's say you're taking E major, normal scale exercise, right? And you could do it in this rhythm. You could also try singing it. You could also practice your swaras or your solfege. In solfege, we say Dore Mipha Solati. In Indian Swaras, we say Sare Gama Padani. So you could actually work on your intervals or your ear training with that rhythm. And one thing I'd like to point out is whenever you're trying to work on ear training and melodic stuff, when you add rhythm into the equation, it makes the melodic ear training all that more tricky. It makes it all that more interesting because the rhythm kind of messes with your mind. Okay, let's do this again. Okay, the scale. But also jumble stuff out. Okay, change it a bit, but you get the idea. I quite like that as a tune you could practice. So something like that. It's a lot nicer to say Sare Gama Padani. It's a lot easier on the tongue. That's why I guess in the east, we say that and in the west, you guys who are watching will say Dore Mipha Solati. It's pretty much the same. It's just to train your ear and move forward. So now let's bring in the other two rhythms into the equation. What are the other two rhythms which we have to deal with now? Just a moment. There we go. So the other two rhythms, so totally we have four rhythms which are dividing by two. There's this one. There's this one. Yeah, thanks Chan. The whole idea is you need to practice it so that it does in fact sound good. So you have this one, you have this one, this one and this one. Now let's do some combos and let's bring all of them together. So this is a bar of music which we could try out now. So to count this particular thing, you just have to be a bit careful at this beat because these off beats are slightly on the trickier side. So you want to go da, da, da, da, da, da. What is happening here? One and two and three and four and, okay, if you observe beat two does not have an on beat. It has only an off beat. So this is going to be one and two and three and four and what do we do at the four? We need to engulf the entire beat. Okay, you need to basically play one clap for the entire beat four. So you go one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and let's do it together. Two, one, start. One and two and three and four and one and two. So two basically I'm sort of reverse. Okay, one and two and three and four. One and two and three and four. Why don't we try to explore this using an arpeggio pattern on the piano? Maybe let's take this chord E minor, E G B and try to do this. Okay, so you go something like this. You could basically take any of these notes of the chord, the low note, the middle note or the high note and kind of jumble them up, put a pattern which you enjoy and play them together. For example, you could also add the pinky to play the high E if you'd like that could also work out really well. So you go quite like that. Okay, so you could now add another rhythm and thus create another arpeggio pattern. Okay, this is another rhythm I'm writing for you. So what is this going to be now? Okay, that's one whole of one and of two, nothing on the two and of three, nothing on the three and then both the four and the end of the four. So it's going to end up being I hope I'm right. But yeah, you get the idea that the one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four. So let's try and create an arpeggio pattern around that. Try this out. I'm just on the E minor chord. And what I like to do in the left hand is just hold the root and do a pulse with the left and really take the rhythm to town as we say. So that's all I did was just explore this one rhythm. So again, recap, let's recap what you can do when presented with these rhythms, right? First off, you need to write it. Writing it is very crucial. You can write it using any which way you want notation would be recommended since notation is like the universal language. So in this entire lesson, I've been pretty much writing stuff down after you write it, make sure to clap it or vocalize it in some way or the other. Okay, do not touch your piano or the guitar yet, right? So do da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da, da. So get used to that and then figure out what you'd like to do after having vocalized or you know, clap that particular pattern. One opportunity would just be scale practice. You can just basically practice your scale, you could do the blue scale, you could do the major scale, you can do the minor scale, whatever scale you'd like to do, you can basically do. Okay, so scale practice could work. The other thing is you could do a chord pattern, right? You could also do a melody line. And last but not least, as I showed you here, you can do an arpeggio. You can do all these things. So let me try and recap and summarize the whole thing. And then I'll be pretty much done with the lesson. So if I have this rhythm, we're going to just take and focus on this one rhythm pretty much only this thing. And let's try and explore all the possibilities of practice. So it's essentially this one rhythm is going to inspire you not only to practice and make your practice a lot more interesting. It's also going to help you compose music, I hope, because you could even play a melody. And yes, I do understand that some of you are having left hand and right hand coordination issues. There is no problem there. It'll take time. First focus on one hand, but the best way to get left hand and right hand coordination in my opinion is to first focus on the pulse, try and develop a steady pulse. I am actually planning to do a YouTube lesson just talking about the importance of the pulse. So I will do that very shortly. Okay, let me just summarize whatever we've discussed with all these four things. So we are taking this rhythm. How did this rhythm pattern come into existence again? We're dividing the beat by two. Okay. And we have permutations, which are actually all four come to think of it. The only thing I did not use is a rest at the entire beat. I'd leave that to you. Maybe you could work on that over the week. So the first thing is scale practice. Let's take the major scale like most pianists do. So instead of doing something as boring as make that a bit more interesting, you can do so one. Okay, maybe you can just stick with just the first five if you're uncomfortable with the thumb crossing. I like that. Always keep the pulse. The other thing you can try is the blue scale. Okay, the other thing you can try are chord patterns. Chord patterns meaning you take a chord like E minor, or maybe take a chord progression. E minor, G major, B dominant, C. Okay, so you go. I'm just taking four chords. So you can play this rhythm over those chords. Which rhythm am I doing? Am I not doing the exact same rhythm? It's the same thing. We can actually spend a few more hours on this rhythm possibly. I think we could actually entertain ourselves with this one rhythm I think overnight. Okay, the only challenge is it's very late in India and I tend to sleep early. So we may wind up shortly. So you go. So coming back to chord patterns. I hope all of you are understanding this. It's essentially one and two and three and four and one and two and three. You could also make an arpeggio pattern around it. Okay, someone asks what key, how can we know key that we play? Okay, I will talk about those doubts in another video. I plan to go live very often. This is a lot of fun for me. I'm really enjoying it. So I hope you are too. And next time I go live, there are some, there are five amazing people here on the group. Thank you for joining in. Next time we go live, I hope there'll be more because I prefer to always see people when I teach. And now I can see these really nice people. I hope I can hear from you at some point. Okay, so you go. The last thing you can do is the melody pattern. You can create basically a melody line on a particular scale. So in this case, I'm taking the blues scale and observe that we are playing this either in the straight form or in the swing form. Okay, you have the straight version. And you have the swung version. Right guys, so let's just have a quick recap. We've basically looked at eight note rhythm patterns. Yes, Manohar, I will definitely cover 16th note rhythm pattern soon. And any other topics which you'd like me to cover, I will be glad to do it. But I hope all of you are observing how the live stream works. Basically, I am writing down stuff in my notebook. And I would like you to work with me for you to get the best results out of this class, you have to teach, you have to do it while I'm explaining, right? Everything I'm trying to do live is very practical. As I play, I want you also to play. It's very, very important. Okay, so basically, today's lecture, we've focused on eight notes dividing the beat by two, we've understood how we can play it, we can play it using the straight version, as well as the swung version. And then we also have all these rhythmic devices, which you can build, which are four in number, it's not a big deal, isn't it? So you divide by two, and you can do four rhythms, you can do this one, this one, this one, this one. And then all through today's lesson, we basically put things together. We put things together in simple rhythm patterns. Eventually, it got to a very, very interesting stage. And then things started going forward quite fast, right? So again, this is Jason here and a few for final things. If you haven't already, do subscribe to our channel. A lot of you keep asking me to give you some of these notes of mine, which I keep writing. So what tends to happen is, whatever I teach, I end up writing it down. So I also learn, it's a great way for me also to benefit from what I'm doing. So all my notes are going to be available and will always be available on our Patreon channel. Okay, we have a Patreon page, you can just go to patreon.com slash Jason Zach, you'll find the link in our main channel. And yeah, those of you have tuned in late, yeah, do watch the video. And I will put these notes up right away on the Patreon channel. Do consider going there downloading yourself a copy. And that'll also support our channel a great deal with a sum which is about $5 a month or so. And what you could also consider to do is also share this channel with your friends on Facebook, or Twitter, or whatever it is you would be able to do. And this is your channel. So whatever you want to learn is what we are going to do at the school to make it happen for you. And we have a lot of other faculty, it's not just me, it's just that I'm the only guy who seems to come on YouTube this often. But we'll definitely be getting a lot of our faculty who are also exceedingly talented musicians in their own right. And we'd like to feature a few of our students as well. We'd like to cover other topics on songwriting, production, composition, arrangement, you know, those sort of things. So do let us know what you enjoy learning, what your level is. And again, thanks a ton for staying tuned. This was a really fun session. Thanks to all of you who've joined in on the zoom call. And I will see you guys in the next one. Cheers