flute book from scratch

1. Look back at the songs with lyrics. Say the lyrics out loud and notice what words and syllables are accented. Do the accented words and syllables fall on the strong beats or the weak beats? Set your full name using whole, half, or quarter notes in 4-4 time, making sure the accented syllables in your name correspond with the strong beats. Then try it with 3-4 time.

2. Pick one of the songs you’ve already learned. Play the first two measures, then improvise the next two. Play the whole piece this way. Think about how the song ends and improvise a similar ending. Try this with a few different songs. The tricky part is keeping track of the time while you’re making things up. You can simplify this by playing something rhythmically and melodically simple, i.e., quarter notes on the same pitch. As you get more comfortable, you’ll be able to try more complex ideas.

3. Find a short nursery rhyme and set it to music using do, re, & mi, with C = do, F = do, or G = do in 4-4 time; for now, make sure the last note of the piece is do. Remember that the accented words in the nursery rhyme should be placed on the strong beats in 4/4. Then try it in 3-4 time.

4. Get together with friend, as before, one playing a repeated pattern, and the other improvises over it, using a pattern that sounds like 3/4 time.

So far we’ve been grouping our beats in twos: STRONG-weak-STRONG-weak. When we group beats, that’s called meter; when we group beats in twos, that’s called duple meter. We’ve already seen two time-signatures that can show duple meter: two-four and four-four. We also can group beats in threes and call it triple meter: STRONG-weak-weak. Here are a few ways to get the sense of triple meter:

• stomp-clap-clap: otherwise known as “boom-chick-chick.” Make sure that your stomps and claps are each the same amount of time and don’t wait between the last clap and the next stomp (then you’d have stomp-clap-clap-rest, and then we’re back in duple meter).
• count 1-2-3-1-2-3 (or say boom-chick-chick, if you like) over and over and sway, rock, or walk, making sure each movement lands on “one.”

Practice these movements at many different speeds.

Below are nine songs, all using three-four time signature. As usual, learn them in C = do, F = do, and G = do. There are do-re-mi songs, do-re-mi-sol songs, and do-re-mi-sol-la songs.

Before we play this last song, let’s take a closer look at those measures that have only rests in them. That’s right, the ones with the whole rests. How many beats do whole rests get? Four. And how many beats do we have per measure? Three. Hmmm. Small problem. Many of our notation conventions were established in the Middle Ages and Renaissance eras — back when paper and ink were very expensive. These conventions basically save ink and paper. The little blob of ink that makes a whole rest takes up less ink and less space on the page than the two blobs that make a half rest and a quarter rest. So, as of this point onward, we must amend our definition of a whole rest to say that it is EITHER four beats OR an entire measure of rest, depending on what the time signature is. In short, only wait three beats on those measures with only a rest in them.

One more point about this last song: it ends with a measure of rest. Even if you’re playing by yourself, pretend that someone else is playing with you; don’t act like the song is over when someone else is playing. Wait until the whole song is over.