3:15
Counting a bar and a phrase in dance music
On YouTube this video is called Counting a Bar and Phrasein Dance Music Video 1.
What this lesson teaches
The first of a short series on counting, and it introduces the method he uses everywhere else.
A bar
Four beats. One, two, three, four, counted on every kick, continuously, all the way through the track.
A phrase
Four bars together - sixteen beats - and he counts it like this:
1-1-2-3, 2-1-2-3, 3-1-2-3, 4-1-2-3.
The leading number is the bar you are in. The three that follow are beats two, three and four of that bar.
Why not just count fours
This is the point of the method and it is worth being clear about.
Count "one two three four, one two three four, one two three four" and at any moment you know where you are in the bar - and nothing at all about where you are in the phrase. Was that the second bar or the third? You have no idea, because every bar sounded the same.
His method carries both pieces of information in one stream. Hear yourself say "three" and you know instantly that you are in the third bar of the phrase, with one to go.
That is the difference between knowing a change is coming and being surprised by it.
It is a DJ's convention, not notation
He makes a passing distinction between this and a proper musical bar, and it is fair. A musician would not count like this.
But a musician is reading a score and knows where they are in the piece. A DJ is listening to a record they may not know, trying to work out where the next sixteen-bar block ends, with one hand on a fader. The counting method is built for that job and it is better at it.
Practise it out loud
He counts along with his fingers moving so you can see the shape of it.
Do it out loud, with music, until the leading number arrives without effort. Everything structural in the rest of the curriculum assumes you can.
Contents of the video
Alright folks, Jonathan here. This is video number one in a selection I'm doing on something called counting bars. Now first of all, that guy there is a bar in music and we'll count that as follows. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Now we won't just count it twice, we'll count that continually all the way through the music every time we hear a beat. Now that guy there is called a phrase. Now it's not dissimilar at all to a bar, the difference being though we have 1, 2, 3, 4 bars squashed in together. Now we'll count this as follows. 1, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 3, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3.
Bars and phrases is that it's a lot easier to use this method with regards the type of music you like as opposed to using this method here which is a proper musical bar. Now this is video number one. In future videos we'll be utilizing counting bars and also counting phrases in different kinds of music as in hip-hop, soul, Now this time what we'll do, exactly the same thing but we'll count using the phrase. Now bearing in mind I'm looking at this from the opposite side so hopefully it will give you a general idea with regards to the hand movement here and the actual counting and also listen to the beat and it will give you an idea of how I'm counting while I'm moving my fingers. Off we go.
Gives you a general idea. This is video number one and in video number one we're looking at counting bars And also looking at counting phrases as well. Thanks for watching, practice and enjoy!
This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.
