The Performers:

Jose Galeano - congas, bongo, other percussion
Jason Mackenzie - drum set
Sathish Pathakota - mridangam, kanjira
Alseny Sylla - djembe

*** Music is a language. Like most languages, it has a written, and an expressed, or spoken form. These four musicians are using their shared musical vocabulary to communicate with each other. They will be having a musical conversation, and, through solos (improvisation), each one will have a chance to speak their mind.***

Vocabulary Reference List:

beat - unit of measurement of rhythmic time

downbeat -- first beat of a measure. You may here someone refer to accenting, changing, or ending "on the one."

odd time - less common meters such as 5/4, 7/8 , etc.

measure (or bar) - the notes and rests between two bar lines

meter- the regularly recurring pulsations of beats and spaces. You may also hear it referred to as the groove, feel, pulse, or time.

rhythm - the organization of music in time using long and short note values

subdivisions - the dividing up of time signatures into 2's and/or 3's to help ease counting or writing music

tempo - speed or pace

time signature - a sign placed at the beginning of a piece to indicate the type of meter it is in

konakkol - Indian system of using syllables to correspond to the different sounds you can make on the drums.

Ever catch yourself bobbing your head or tapping your foot to a song before you realize what you're doing? What you are probably tapping out is the "meter."

	meter- the regularly recurring pulsations of beats and spaces. You may also hear it referred to as the feel, groove, pulse, or time.
To determine the meter by listening, we must first figure out where the downbeat is.
	The downbeat is the first beat of a measure, or "the one." You may here someone refer to accenting, changing, or ending "on the one."
When writing music, the meter is shown by using what is called a time signature.
	The time signature on a page of music is located on the left side of the staff, and consists of two numbers stacked vertically. For example:

The top number stands for the number of beats per measure. This greatly affects how the music "feels."

The bottom number stands for the type of written note that counts as 1 beat. The number 2 stands for "half note," the number 4 stands for "quarter note," and the number 8 stands for "eighth note," etc. This number greatly affects how the music is "written."

The time signatures we will be dealing with today are:

3	4	5	6		7
4	4	4	8	and	8

In practice, these are often referred to by just the top number. For example, "playing in three," or "this piece is in seven."

4
4 time is the most common meter - so much so that it is referred to as "common time," and written with the symbol:

The next most popular meters are	3	4
	4	8

The less common meters	5	7	11
	4	8	8	etc, are often referred to as "odd time".

The Performers:

***** Each of these performers have played internationally with some of the world's top artists in their field. We are VERY lucky to have them here in Austin, and in your school today!!! Please show them your respect and appreciation. *****

Jason    Jose    Alseny    Sathish

Jose Galeano

instruments: congas, bongos, other percussion
from: Nicaragua
location: in the middle of Central America, between Honduras and Costa Rica.
languages: It's main language is Spanish, while several indigenous and Creole languages are spoken as well. Jose speaks Spanish and English.
population: 4,807,000

Alseny Sylla

instrument: djembe (hollow drum with goatskin)
from:Guinea
location: on the west coast of Africa, bordering Mali, Senegal, Liberia, Sierra Leone, and Guinea Bissau
languages: There are 38 languages spoken in Guinea. Sene speaks Su Su, Landuma, Fula, Mandengo, Malenke, Bambara , French, and English.
population: 7,337,000

Sathish Pathakota

instruments: mridangam - two-headed drum with treble notes on right and bass notes on left. Mostly used in South Indian classical music.
kanjira - One headed, South Indian classical tambourine made of wood and lizard skin.
from: India
location: South central Asia, bordering Pakistan, China, Nepal, and Bangladesh
languages: There are more than 24 official languages with several dialects in each language. Sathish speaks Telugu, Kannada, Hindi and Tamil, in addition to fluent English, due to the influence of the educational system started by the British before India gained independence.
population: over 1 billion! (and 1/3 the size of the US)

Jason Mackenzie

instrument: drum set
from: United States of America
location: North America, south of Canada, north of Mexico
languages: mainly English, Spanish, and several indigenous languages; however, in international cities like New York, Washington D.C., and Los Angeles, you can hear languages from all over the world being spoken. Jason speaks English and Italian.
Population: over 280,000,000

Subdivisions

What happens when the tempo, or speed, is too fast to actually say or think, "on, two, three, four, five, six, seven?"

*** All meters or grooves can be subdivided into 2's and 3's for counting or writing purposes ***

This comes in particularly handy when counting odd times at fast tempos.

For example:
7
8 time

4 + 3 = 7

one, two, three, four + one, two, three = one,two,three,four,five, six,seven

OR,
2 + 2 + 3 = 7

one, two + one, two + one, two, three one, two, three, four,five, six, seven

5
4 time
2 + 3 = 5

one, two + one, two, three = one, two, three, four, five