corresponding meters. Repeat the exercise with a compound meter example (Greensleeves
for sextuple meter), emphasizing the secondary accent every three beats. Try some other
examples: Camptown Races (duple), The Star-Spangled Banner (triple), Row, Row, Row
Your Boat (quadruple), and My Bonnie Lies Over the Ocean (sextuple). Finally, introduce
your students to an example of polyrhythm, using either the Javanese gamelan “Encounter”
example (Wayang) or the East African drumming example (Ensiriba ya munange Katego).
Ask students to clap on beats they recognize as primary and secondary, emphasizing the
more complicated issue of metrical pulse with regard to polyrhythmic music.
2. Display to the class the notation and lyrics to Stephen Foster’s Camptown Races. (This
activity will work best if you used Camptown Races as an example of simple duple meter in
the previous lecture segment.) Before playing the example, ask the students to listen and
watch for what is different about the rhythm and accent in the third and fourth measures on
the syllables “Doo–dah” (highlight the two measures in the display and trace the notation
with a pointer or mouse as you play the example). Have the students clap back the rhythm
of the third and fourth measures. Which beat sounds accented? Is it “DOO–dah” or “Doo-
DAH”? If students do not immediately recognize the emphasis on the offbeat, ask them
which beat is longer. After students recognize the first syllable (“Doo”) as short and the
second (“dah”) as long, specify that this rhythm is an example of syncopation because the
emphasis is on the offbeat. Next, play the opening of Scott Joplin’s Pine Apple Rag and ask
the students to listen for the “Doo–DAHs,” or syncopations. You can use “Doo–DAH” as a
mnemonic device for all musical excerpts that incorporate syncopation.
3. Play Hildegard von Bingen’s Alleluia, O virga mediatrix and ask the class to clap back the
rhythm of the excerpt. Which beats are accented? Emphasize to students that not all music