A number of questions may haunt you while designing and delivering Rhythm Discrimination Activities……………..Can the children discriminate between and among more than two meters? Are they discriminating meters or simply rhythm syllables? Can the children identify meters by name? Can the children identify the meters without rhythm syllables? What about discriminating between macro beats, micro beats, and divisions? What can children do musically as a result of being able to discriminate same and different in meters?

Such questions provide great opportunity for classroom research. Children with a background in meters, tonalities, and syllables have much to teach us about the process of music learning. Designing activities that explore your questions can bring new insights into the workings of the musical mind.

The musical mind steeped in meters understands the difference between meters in sound. Rhythm syllables entice audiation to reflect on itself, to become aware of rhythm knowing, giving voice to what audiation knows in sound. Discrimination Activities compel audiation to further reflect on itself, to become aware of meters and the distinguishing characteristics of each meter, bringing audiation to greater command of its own knowing. Contrasting only two meters best clarifies the definition of each, making each meter more tangible, more well-defined in audiation. Children learn what something is by learning what it is not. The musical mind that has a handle on Duple, Triple, and Unusual Paired meter through Discrimination Activities with two meters find very little challenge in discriminating between three meters. Is it necessary to design activities with three meters? Perhaps to teach you more about the workings of the musical mind, but not necessarily for the children’s growth. If the children know Duple meter in Rhythm Discrimination Activities when it is contrasted with Triple meter and when it is contrasted with Unusual Paired meter, Duple meter becomes their own, and they know it when presented alongside several meters. When children take ownership of Duple, Triple, and Unusual Paired meters, they can begin to distinguish between Unusual Paired and Unusual Unpaired meters, and Combined meter becomes just another meter rather than one of significant challenge.

Are the children discriminating between meters or just between rhythm syllables? When children have the appropriate background in meters, rhythm syllables adhere to sound, causing audiation to reflect on itself and become aware of what it knows in sound. Rhythm syllables are not an imposed system on the musical mind that is steeped in meters, but rather, the rhythm syllables become part of the sound. The musical mind knows rhythm syllables only in sound. Syllables give voice to the distinguishing characteristics between meters, but only in the context of the meters in sound. The syllables are otherwise meaningless to the musical mind. Only the thinking mind would try to discriminate between syllables of different meters without the sound of the meters.

Can children identify meters by name? Perhaps, perhaps not. The goal of Rhythm Discrimination Activities is to give the musical mind the opportunity to compare and contrast meters in sound, not to formally label that sound. Your incidental use of the names of meters will ultimately lead the children to use the terms, but the child who refers to Duple meter as “du de dus” and Triple meter as “du da di dus” is far more advanced than the child who can only label or define Duple and Triple meters theoretically. Children will learn the labels informally through your incidental use of them and begin to use them as their own.

Can children identify the meters without rhythm syllables?  Perhaps, perhaps not.  Ultimately, the goal of using syllables is so that we can forget them—that audiation becomes so strong that it doesn’t need the syllables that helped audiation become so strong. At this point, however, the goal of Rhythm Discrimination Activities is not to identify meters without syllables. When children become adept at distinguishing between meters with syllables, it is always interesting to throw in an occasional example without syllables to see what the children do with it, or to nudge the thinking mind out of the way. The challenge of identifying meters without syllables is far greater than one might think, as not only does it require children to reflect on their audiation of meters without the language of syllables that has given voice to their audiation, but it requires audiation to infer those syllables from the sound—to determine from the sound alone whether they are hearing “du de du” or “du da di du” or another meter. This, too, comes with time and experience in distinguishing one meter from another in syllables, and can be “practiced” through a variety of song literature.

What about discriminating between macro beats, micro beats, and divisions? Meter is the broader organization of beats and therefore the first to be addressed in Rhythm Discrimination Activities. Hearing same and different in meters teaches children to reflect on audiation for same and different in smaller degrees. Until this point, children have engaged in Macro and Micro Beat Activities with and without syllables, with appropriate weight distribution between macro and micro beats, so inviting discrimination between macro and micro beats is easy, followed naturally by divisions. Discrimination of “beat function” will be addressed in later postings.

What can children do musically as a result of being able to discriminate same and different in meters? The real purpose of any Rhythm Activity is to develop skill that can be applied to musical encounters other than Rhythm Activities. Discrimination between meters and then between macro and micro beats serves greatly in the choral classroom context. You can coach your students as real musicians, introducing a song in whatever meter, knowing children have the context for it; presenting a song that shifts between Duple and Triple meters and knowing the children have the background to sing it musically; knowing your singers understand when you mention the shifting meters; asking for greater weight on macro beats; rehearsing an intricate passage and knowing the children have the foundation to perform it precisely within the meter. Rhythm Activities are for the sake of making exciting music rhythmically, with precision, momentum, and appropriate weight.

Rhythm Discrimination Activities are also the pre-requisite for rhythm reading, as reading requires audiation to reflect on itself even more, becoming so aware of itself that it can be mirrored in notation. Concrete understanding of meters in audiation, with syllables, with an awareness of differences between meters and characteristic sounds of each are necessary in order to learn to read music with “effortless ease.”