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Lesson · Grade 5 · Arts Education

Beat, metre and rhythm: how music moves in time

  • Grade 5
  • Arts Education
  • 1 min 25 s
  • British Columbia
  • BC5-AR-03

Twelve evenly spaced marks on a line of time are the beat. Counting and bar boxes group them in threes and then fours, with beat one strongest, and bars of different lengths underneath show a rhythm of sounds lasting one beat, two beats or half a beat. Short tick and note examples play after the voice for each idea while a line sweeps along the time arrow, and the video ends on the one-line recap "Beat: the pulse. Metre: the groups. Rhythm: long and short."

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In one sentence

The question this lesson answers

How does music move in time?

Most music has a beat, a steady pulse that keeps going.

Transcript

What the lesson says

How does music move in time?

Most music has a beat, a steady pulse that keeps going.

Each beat is a mark, evenly spaced along a line of time.

Metre groups the beats into a repeating pattern of strong and weak beats.

Each group is called a bar, and here each bar has three beats.

Beat one of each bar is usually the strongest.

The same beat can also be grouped in fours.

Rhythm is a pattern of long and short sounds played over the beat.

A sound can last one beat, two beats or half a beat.

Listen to the rhythm over the beat.

The beat stays even, while the rhythm mixes long and short sounds.

The beat is the pulse, metre groups it, and rhythm is a pattern of long and short sounds.

Curriculum

Where this fits

British Columbia, Grade 5

Arts Education, Music: music: beat/pulse, metre, duration, rhythm (music), tempo, pitch, timbre, dynamics (music), form (music), textureBC5-AR-03

Next: Pitch, Dynamics and Timbre: How High, How Loud, What Kind of Sound

British Columbia, Grade 6

Arts Education, Music: music: beat/pulse, metre, duration, rhythm (music), tempo, pitch, timbre, dynamics (music), form (music), textureBC6-AR-01

Next: Pitch, Dynamics and Timbre: How High, How Loud, What Kind of Sound

British Columbia, Grade 7

Arts Education, Music: music: beat/pulse, metre, duration, rhythm (music), tempo, pitch, timbre, dynamics (music), form (music), texture, notationBC7-AR-03

Next: Pitch, Dynamics and Timbre: How High, How Loud, What Kind of Sound

This lesson is also listed in Grade 6 and Grade 7.

The outcomes and strands follow the British Columbia curriculum.

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