There are 8 days to go until the Nat 5 Understanding Music paper on Friday 5th May.
Today, we'll have a look at the difference between a reel and a jig, as well as a youtube playlist of some TIMBRE and DYNAMICS concepts.
a) Listen to Nellie the Elephant. The chorus starts around 0.28. Sing along! All together now .........
Nellie is in 6/8 time. Jigs are also in 6/8, which is an example of compound time. This is a jig.
Look at this music. Notice how each beat in the bar (there are 2) divides into 3 quaver notes (e.g. in bars 1, 2, 3 and 4, etc.) or the equivalent of this (e.g. the 1st note in bar 5 is a dotted crotchet, which is equal to 3 quavers) or the first half of the 1st time bar (a crotchet and a quaver = 3 quavers).
A reel, though, is in simple time and has 2 or 4 beats in a bar. Each beat divides into groups of 2 or 4, like this. Listen to the music. Here is another reel. And another.
Try to listen to them often enough that you can easily tell the difference. Remember that it has nothing to do with tempo - a reel and a jig could be at exactly the same speed. It's the internal workings of them which make the difference, i.e. whether the beats break down into 3s (jig) or 2s or 4s (reel).
Reel is a Nat 3 concept and Jig is a Nat 4 concept. They come up regularly, however, in Nat 5 questions, so make sure you can recognise them and tell the difference between them.
b) Click here for a youtube playlist on N5 TIMBRE and DYNAMICS concepts. Click through the videos on the right hand side.
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