SKI-HILL GRAPH PEDAGOGY METER FUNDAMENTALS

It’s time to change the way we teach and talk about musical meter, according to this intricate primer.

Calilhanna, an Australian musicologist and music teacher, argues that conventional time signatures—3/4, 4/4, and so forth—fail to convey important information about the metrical nuances of music. To correct this, she has adapted the theories of Yale musicologist Richard Cohn into a practical handbook for teaching meter to kids. Her system has students listen carefully to pieces of music, clap and tap out all the metrical “pulses” they can hear, and then map them in several graphical formats, including a “ski hill” graph that arranges all the combinations of basic 2:1 and 3:1 meters in a pyramid; a linear graph that layers different pulses on top of each other; and a circular graph inscribed with polygons that represent the pulses. (An analysis of “Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star” identifies four metrical pulses.) The author illustrates her process with several pieces of music, from simple tunes to more complex hemiola (3:2) meters, African tresillo meters, and syncopated swing meters. Calilhanna backgrounds all of this with an engaging tour of musicology, acoustics, and cognitive science, attributing many benefits to her method of understanding meter—it helps kids understand math, develop critical-thinking skills, and gain confidence in performing, she contends, asserting that it also captures the metrical complexities of world music better than Western time signatures do. Aimed at music teachers, Calilhanna’s prose often has a dry, academic feel, but she sometimes conveys a stirring passion for the subject. (“How can meter theory with inaccurate representation of music, be inclusive or ethical? It cannot.”) Her approach does make explicit a wealth of complex information that can’t be derived from a simplistic time signature, and that will aid learners in comprehending music. Instructors and students will be intrigued by her insights.

A dense but revelatory treatise and guide to musical time and rhythm.