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iMusic Examples

Some of the musical selections below signaled by a require subscription access*. See below for listening assignments.

You must have Flash Player 9 or higher to view this page.

Examples of Meters:

Duple meter: Ah! vous dirai-je, maman (Mozart), same tune as
Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star (children's song)

Triple meter: America (patriotic song)

Quadruple meter: Battle Hymn of the Republic (Civil War song)

Sextuple meter: Greensleeves (folk song, United Kingdom)

Syncopation

Swing Low, Sweet Chariot (African-American spiritual):
Try singing or speaking this song in time with a regular beat.
(Note that the words in the first measure come between the beats.)

Listening Activity: Rhythm

Bernstein: Tonight, from West Side Story
Licensed streaming of this selection requires the Windows Media Player.

Let's return to the song Tonight and note its rhythmic and metric concepts.

What to Listen For:
  • Duple meter (strong beat, weak beat).
  • Initial upbeat (To- NIGHT, last part of word is downbeat).
  • Complex rhythms with offbeats and syncopations.
  • Polyrhythms in accompaniment.
Reviewing Concepts of Rhythm and Meter:

Duple meter: Camptown Races (Stephen Foster)

Triple meter: Lullaby (Brahms)

Quadruple meter: O Canada (Canadian national anthem)

Sextuple meter: Pop Goes the Weasel (traditional, United Kingdom)

Offbeat: Oh! Susannah (Stephen Foster)

Syncopation: Pine Apple Rag (Scott Joplin)

Shifting meter: El Cihualteco (Mexico, mariachi song)

Polyrhythm: Osain (Cuba, Santería)

Nonmetric: Kyrie (Hildegard of Bingen)

In order to stream all selections on this site, you must have a basic subscription to Norton's Online Listening Lab. The cost is only $15.00 for over 20 hours of listening, including most of the works in The Enjoyment of Music.

Streaming access also allows you to use the iLGs online and take the Listening Quizzes.

You must have proper subscription access to download the MP3. This is the most economical option, one that provides streaming and MP3 downloads of over 50 key works covered in the book for only $20.00. To download an MP3, right click on the "Download MP3" link.

This level of access also grants access to the podcast versions of the iLGs. Right-Click and download these to your hard drive to view in QuickTime or import them into your iTunes library and synch them to your Video iPod Nano, iPod Classic, iTouch, or iPhone.

Subscriptions last for 8 months. Content you download lasts forever.

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Norton Gradebook

Instructors now have an easy way to collect students’ online quizzes with the Norton Gradebook without flooding their inboxes with e-mails.

Students can track their online quiz scores by setting up their own Student Gradebook.