Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star

1. Let's start with a simple tune, Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star

The first step

(a) At the smallest level (beating all the shortest notes), the feet will beat quite fast.
     Try it yourself before looking at the answer.
As you sing the melody, on the very first note,
     start on either foot and see if you end on the right foot.

The footsie animations
Now we have some goodies for you - little animations which show feet moving while you hear the melody. These animations are intended to serve as confirmations of your answers and not to replace the gestures of singing and swaying which are so important to the feeling of rhythm. Just watch a good gospel choir and you will know what we mean.

Once you have found on which foot to start, check by looking at the Animation
- as you see, this level starts on the right foot,
     and you now have the feeling of its Beats and Off-beats
          (the Beats on the right foot and the Off-beats on the left foot).

There is a lot going on here
Repeat it several times to get this feeling into the feet.
Notice how the Melody and the Words fit with the feet.
Notice that, on the note in the middle and on the note at the end,
the feet struck twice.
These two notes are twice as long as the others.
Whatever note value is arbtrarily chosen for the shortest notes,
these two longer notes will have double that value.
Notice also that, on these two longer notes,
the feet were Right-Left, as they should be subdivided.

Since this level started on the right foot, it will not produce a pick-up.

The second step

(b) At the next larger level, the feet will beat twice as slowly.
As you sing the melody, on the very first note,
     start on either foot and see if you end on the right foot.

Once you have found on which foot to start, check by looking at the Animation
- as you see, this larger level starts on the left foot, and you now have the feeling of its Beats and Off-beats.

Repeat it several times to get this feeling into the feet.
     Notice how the Melody and the Words fit with the feet.
     Notice that the longest note of the melody is not longer than the Beats of this level.

We have found Level 0,
     the most important level, the smallest level to start on an Off-Beat and end on a Beat,
          without notes in the melody longer than the beats of the level.

We now know that the smallest level was what we call Level -1.
All the larger levels (+1, +2, +3...) will have exactly the same shape as Level 0.

Since Level 0 starts on the left foot,
     the 2 notes in the first Off-Beat will produce a pick-up at the next larger level (Level +1).

The third step

(c) At the next larger level (Level +1),
     the feet will beat twice as slowly again,
          with 2 notes (the Off-beat of Level 0)
               acting as pick-up before the left foot (do not start moving too soon).
We know that all large levels start on the left foot (an Off-beat) - no more surprises.

You may check by looking at the Animation
- as you now know, all large levels start on the left foot.

Repeat Level +1 several times to get this feeling into the feet.
     Notice how the Melody and the Words fit with the feet.

Since Level +1 starts on the left foot,
     the 4 notes in the first Off-Beat will produce an additional pick-up at the next larger level (Level +2).

The fourth step

(d) At the next larger level (Level +2),
     the feet will beat twice as slowly again,
          with 6 notes (the Off-beats of Level 0, 2 notes, and of Level +1, 4 notes)
               acting as pick-up before the left foot (do not start moving too soon).

You may check by looking at the Animation
- all large levels start on the left foot.

Repeat Level +2 several times to get this feeling into the feet.
     Notice how the Melody and the Words fit with the feet.

We have reached the largest level of the section we sang,
     where the Off-Beat is 8 times the length of the shortest note
          and the pick-up almost half of the whole piece.

Finding levels
The different levels of this melody were easy to find
because Level 0 was "close to the surface",
with only one small, negative, irregular level (-1).
This simplicity is typical of French songs
and we are tempted to believe that Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star
comes from the French song Ah! vous dirai-je, maman.

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