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Lesson 2

Musical

Example

Lesson 2

Secret

Score

Lesson 2

Score/

Music

Altering the Rhythm

Getting back to our original phrase, we see that rhythmically it simply consists of four 8th notes plus one half note:

Remember, two 8th notes equal one quarter note. But so do four 16th notes:

What if we substituted two of those 8th notes for four 16th notes? We would still have four full beats in the bar, and we would add a little more interest to the rhythm. We can either convert the first pair of 8th notes to 16th notes,

or we can convert the second pair.

Let's listen to both choices and decide which one works best. Here is the first pair of 8th notes, now sounding as 16th notes:

Next let's listen to the second pair of 8th notes as 16th notes:

As you can hear, the first pair of 8th notes work best as 16th notes. That's because the extra rhythmic movement is occurring all on beat 1, the downbeat of the bar. This gives the phrase a strong beginning.