Fun with Melodic Dictation (Introduction) @DavidNewmanFunctionalSolfege

Uploaded September 2011 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago

The first in a series of videos to give extra practice in melodic dictation.

Fun with Melodic Dictation (Introduction)

$Changing meters exercise. Steady note value and steady beat value. Changing meters exercise, with a steady note value and steady beat value. (More explanation below!) There is no rhythmic dictation to go with this one. It is just a chance to practice conducting through these meter changes. It is heavily pedantic, so if I’m moving too slowly for you, you could still freeze the first bit of the video and just see how easily you can do it without help. To perform or take rhythmic dictation in changing meters like this, it is almost essential to have this conducting skill be fluent, so your brain can focus fully on the rhythmic patterns. Some useful background information, if youre just joining in: Time signatures have a top and bottom number. Like fractions, the bottom number is a denominator (gives you a note value) and the top number is a numerator (tells you how many of that note value are in the measure.) So, a 4/4 meter means there will be four quarter notes in each measure. And a 6/8 meter means there will be six eighth notes in each measure. However, we have some conventions around time signatures. Most importantly, common time signatures like 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4 are called simple meters. They will generally be conducted exactly as they look. 2/4 will be conducted in two quarter note beats. 3/4 will be conducted in three quarter note beats. 4/4 will be conducted in four quarter note beats. 2/2 will be conducted in two half note beats. Meters where the top number is a multiple of 3, like 6/8, 9/8 or 12/8, are called compound meters and are generally conducted in groups of three of the denominator. So 6/8 is conducted in two groups of three eighth notes, or, to put it another way, two dotted quarter beats. (This is also how it is beamed.) Similarly, 9/8 is three dotted quarter beats, and 12/8 is four dotted quarter beats. All of the above are very common meters, and are usually handled as described above. This exercise has a few slightly less common meters, and how you handle them depends on a reasonable assessment of the tempo, the note values and how many there are. At a brisk tempo, it would be silly to conduct (or conceptualize) a 3/8 measure in 3. It would usually be best then to conduct it in 1, unless it would be clearer to conduct or conceptualize it in 3. Conversely, if a tempo is very slow, one might actually conduct a 6/4 measure in 6 quarter note beats instead of two dotted half beats. (It will still be a compound meter. In all meters, subdivision for notes smaller than the denominator is always done evenly unless otherwise noted, ie: with a triplet.$