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Hello, and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman.
Today we're going to be learning about a note that lasts three beats.
It's called a dotted half note.
I'm going to sing "Listen for Bells", and I'd like you to sing along too,
and see if you can notice where you hear a note that lasts three beats.
To feel the beat, we're going to just gently touch our fingers like this while we sing.
Okay, and just keep this as the steady beat through the whole song.
Ready, set, go.
Listen for bells in the
steeple to ring!
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
Where did you hear a note that lasted for three beats?
If you said on the word "ring", you're right.
Steeple to ring.
Ring lasts for three beats.
Ring!
When a note lasts for three beats, we call it a dotted half note.
And it looks like this.
This is a picture of a dotted half note.
You'll see that the paper is kind of long because this note is long.
It takes up three beats.
When you see this note, you can say it like this.
Three.
Here is the rhythm to "Listen for Bells".
Let's try pointing to each note, and singing the rhythm words together.
We'll say TA for quarter notes, or three for the dotted half note.
Point and sing with me.
Ready go. TA, TA, TA, TA, TA, TA,
TA, TA, TA, Three.
The second part of the song has the same rhythm,
so let's keep going with the second half of the song.
TA, TA, TA, TA, TA, TA,
TA, TA, TA, Three.
Great work.
Most music is made up of strong beats and weak beats.
In "Listen for Bells", we're going to figure out which beats
are strong and which are weaker.
When you hear a strong beat, I want you to clap both of your hands together,
and when you hear a weaker beat, let's just touch two fingers together.
See if you can feel with me which beats are strong, and which beats are weak.
So get ready to clap or touch.
Ready, set, go.
Listen for bells in the
steeple to ring!
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
Ding! Ding! Ding! Ding!
Good. In music when you want to show that there's a strong beat,
we use something called a barline.
Let's go back to the rhythm we drew for "Listen for Bells", and add in the barlines.
When we have a strong beat, we place a barline right before it.
I'm just using these popsicle sticks to represent barlines.
In real music that you see in a book, a barline is a thin straight black line
up and down, that cuts across the staff.
So, placing a barline here tells us that this first beat is going to be a strong beat.
One, two, three.
Now I'm going to sing the whole first row,
and I want you to point to the beat where there is another strong beat.
We already know there's a strong beat here,
but see if you can point to the beat where you hear another strong beat.
Here we go.
Listen for bells in the.
Where did you hear another strong beat?
If you're pointing here, you are correct, so we need another barline right there.
Now, I'm going to sing it again, and this time I'll go on to the next row.
Point to the next place that you hear a strong beat.
Listen for bells in the
steeple to ring!
Where else did you hear strong beats?
If you're pointing here, you're correct.
And do you know where another one is?
Steeple to ring!
This is another strong beat.
Great.
Now, often at the end of each line,
they put a barline just to show that that group of beats is done.
So I'm also going to add barlines at the end,
and that tells you that a new barline is coming on the next line.
What do you notice about how many beats are in each group between the barlines?
If you said you notice that there are three beats in between each barline, you're correct.
The space between two barlines is called a measure.
A measure is like a little box or a group of beats.
In this song, every measure has a group of three beats in it.
In music, when you have a song where every measure has three beats,
there's a symbol we put at the start of that song.
In this song, we would write three four at the start.
The top number tells us how many beats in every measure.
This four on the bottom just stands for a quarter note.
So three four really means there are three quarter note beats in every measure.
This is called a time signature,
and it tells you how many beats will be in every measure.
Great work today.
From our website, you can download activities and funsheets
that you can do using barlines, the dotted half note, and rhythms.
Thanks for watching, and I'll see you next time.