Bree Van Reyk's 'Light for the First Time' explores the use of rhythm through augmentation and diminution as well as frequent use of tuplets. We are going to take on this idea and use it our composition. But how?
All these fancy terms and music theory seem complicated but I have broken it down into a very simple worksheet for students to follow.
Firstly, lets look at the use of rhythm in her compositional processes in 'Light for the First Time'. Augmentation refers to lengthening a note value and diminution refers to shortening a note value. This appears frequently in her work;
Although augmentation and diminution does not have a set ratio for how much you should lengthen or shorten a note value, we will only double or half to make it more simpler. For example, if I have crotchet, I can either augment it to a minim or diminish it to a quaver.
Triplets occur frequently in this piece, for example:
Through exploring these rhythmic compositional uses, I have again created a simple worksheet to guide students in creating their own rhythms.
They are first given a two grid to create their own rhythm. Note that one single square is a semiquaver, therefore, students are two create two single 4 beat rhythms. Coloured boxes indicates that a rhythm is being played, whilst blank boxes indicate rests. Dashes within the colour boxes show the division of the rhythm.
Students are to then convert this to traditional notation. (For students who struggle with this step, there is a rhythm pyramid provided to guide them)
For their own rhythms they will then alter it by:
Diminution (repeated twice in one bar)
Augmentation
Students can then replace some of their rhythmic values with triplets.
Using this worksheet, students will create already created many different rhythmic variations to use in their composition. Students can choose which rhythmic phrases to use and combine to suit the colour that they want to portray.
So using the colours and instruments I chose from the first step, the cello can explore the augmented rhythmic phrases whilst the flute can use the diminished phrases!