Rhythm
Developing musicianship
Exploring approaches to teaching rhythm
A rhythm is made up of a pattern of note lengths.
Move to feel the rhythm
In this toolkit, the children will learn to correlate different length notes (durations) with familiar movements in their feet. These movements include: 'walk' (crotchet), 'jogging' (two quavers), 'running faster' (four semiquavers), 'stride' (minim), and 'skipty'. See this handy notation chart with action words as a guide.
Go to: Beat | Pitch
Developing musicianship
How durations relate to one another
As the children experience stepping these durations, they will naturally learn how these durations relate to one another. For instance, that 'jogging' moves twice as fast as 'walk'. That 'stride' is twice the length of 'walk' and that 'wade' is four times as slow as a 'walk'. Equally, that 'running faster' is twice as fast as 'jogging'. This might sound complicated written in words but can be felt naturally through movement.
Sound before symbol and 'feeling' before reading and writing
To begin with, children will learn about rhythm physically, by stepping the rhythms in their feet. Later they will learn how these rhythms are notated using musical symbols.
