Counting in the 6/8 Time Signature
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Name: _________________________________
Slot: ____________ Class: ______________
Counting Music – What We Already Know
Our basic understanding of counting and music comes from the first time you read notes in elementary school.
There you began to setup the understanding of relationships between notes, or the rhythm tree seen below.
Notice that the diagram does not show note values with numbers, just a relationship. From the diagram we know that two quarter notes fit into a half note, two eighth notes fit into a quarter note, or four eighth notes fit into a half note. The next piece that is added is the time signature. Please describe the top and bottom numbers in the time signature below. Phrase your answers as questions.
The top number is easy, but the bottom number is often forgotten about. This number is what adds the values to the tree above.
With a time signature, the tree starts to make rhythmic sense. It gives value to the notes. Fill in the rhythm tree values.
If we look at the same example with money, we could have a tree that looks like the one below.
From this picture we know the relationship between the bills, but until the worth of the bill is determined, we have no idea how much value is given to these bills. When we know that a one dollar bill is worth 100 cents we have a way to determine value. When we know that fact the 5 dollar bills are worth 500 cents and the ten dollar bill is worth 1000 cents. 100 cents
This may seem simplistic, but the cash has no monetary worth until the value of the cent is revealed.
Now that all of this is figured out, let’s add the twist.
Counting Music – Changing the base value of a time signature
So, for all of your time in band, the bottom number in the time signature has been stable … normally it is a 4, which means the quarter note receives one beat. The same goes for the money … dollars have always been equal to 100 cents. What if that value were changed?
If a dollar changed values and was worth 1 cent instead of 100, the values in all bills now change. The five dollar bill is now worth 5 cents because 5 one dollar bills fit into 1 five dollar bill, and the ten dollar bill is worth 10 cents because 2 five dollar bills fit into 1 ten dollar bill.
We can do the same thing with music by changing the bottom number of the time signature. If we use the number 8 instead of 4 the time signature indicates that the eighth note receives one beat. This changes the value of every note in the tree. You could say that each note is worth twice the beats as before, or you could say your foot now taps on the eighth note. Fill in the tree at the top of the next page with the correct note values.
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If you fill in the tree correctly you will see that the base unit of counting has changed from the quarter note pulse to the eighth note pulse. The “base” of the rhythm tree is now the eighth note row at the bottom and the roots stretch below into what will be the sixteenth note row. When compared to the same tree with a 4/4 time signature all of the values are exactly two times larger.
Counting Music – What We Do Now
When counting music that has 8 as the bottom number in the time signature we use the same system of numbers and
“
+
”, but they apply to different note values. We still underline notes that are held for more than one pulse and put rests in parentheses. For the examples below we will keep the beat as whole numbers and there will not be a
“
+
” subdivision. There will only be down “ ”arrows and six beats in each measure for now.
Write in the Counts
123 456
Place counts below and arrows above the notes.
1.
1 2 3 4 5 6
2.
3.
4.
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