Canoe Song: Right Hand

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman.
Today we're learning how to play "Canoe Song", a song with an interesting background.
I used to think that this song was a traditional Native American folk song because that's what I was taught,
and that's what I used to tell all my students.
It was written by a lady named Margaret Embers McGee way back in the early 1900s
for use in the scouting program,
and it became popular throughout the Boy Scout and Girl Scouts of America programs.
Apparently she simply composed it to sound like a traditional American Indian song,
and it worked.
She fooled a lot of music teachers. Myself included.
Let's take a look at the score of "Canoe Song" to get started learning it.
Here's the score for "Canoe Song".
Take a moment and tell me what you notice.
Maybe you notice this forte symbol.
Notice we'll have a treble and bass clef.
Our tempo indication is moderato.
Means a medium speed.
What's our time signature?
If you said 2/4, you're correct. So we'll have 2 beats in every measure.
Now let's check out the rhythms of the melody.
You'll notice we have this TI TA TI rhythm that we've seen in the past, and that we call syncopation.
Remember, syncopation is where we have a lot of rhythm happening on the &
or second half of the beat.
Remember, we can call this first half of the beat 1, the second half of the beat &,
and because this quarter note needs a full beat but it only has a half so far, it needs to borrow or take the first half of beat 2
to make a full beat for that quarter note, and then we're left with a 1/2 beat for this final flagged eighth note.
So we get 1-& 2-&
Will you tap and count that rhythm with me? Ready, go: 1-& 2-&
And then to go on we get 1-&,
and then this quarter note gets 2-&, both halves of the beat.
Let's tap and count the rhythm for these first two measures. Ready, go:
1-& 2-&, 1-& 2-&
Now we could also use our old rhythm words: TI TA TI TI-TI TA
Let's try it that way. Ready, go:
TI TA TI TI-TI TA
Now I'd like you to pause the video, and in your own sheet music, which I'd like you to download and print at home,
try writing in all the subdivided counts through the whole thing,
and then practice tapping and counting on your own, then press play and we'll check it out together.
All right, here's how the count should be written into your music.
Now let's try tapping and counting it together.
I'll count 1-& 2-& to get us ready, and then let's start.
Ready? 1-& 2-&
1-& 2-&, 1-& 2-&
1-& 2-&, 1-& 2-&
1-& 2-&, 1-& 2-&
1-& 2-&, 1-& 2-&, and then it repeats.
Let's listen to a performance.
"Canoe Song" is in C minor, which I know because we see this E-flat in the score,
but it's a new kind of minor.
You're used to this C minor pentascale, but today we're going to use C pentatonic minor.
Pentatonic is a special kind of scale that doesn't have any half steps,
which is why I have to take away this D because it forms a half step with that E.
Now penta you'll remember means five, so there are five notes in this scale.
Where is the fifth note?
It's right here on B-flat,
or
in the case of
"Canoe Song" we'll put that B-flat down here.
So these five pitches form the C pentatonic minor scale.
Let's name the notes: B-flat C, which is DO, E-flat F and G.
That's C pentatonic minor.
Let's see how to play it. We'll use fingers 1 3 so we won't even need our finger 2 on this D. 1 3 4 5 Try playing that with me, go:
1 3 4 5, and now for this B-flat what we'll do is keep your finger 1 on C and let your other fingers glide over so finger 2 now gets to play
this B-flat since the 2 didn't get to play the D, we'll give it this B-flat instead.
Isn't that a cool sound?
Try these notes with me: C playing with me, E-flat F G, then step back down, F E-flat C,
then come over. Let your all your fingers just kind of glide over. Finger 2 lands on B-flat, then back to C.
That's C pentatonic minor.
All right, let's try to play the first two measures of "Canoe Song".
It starts with finger 5 on G, and we have ♫My paddles keen and bright,♫ Now your turn.
Good, now let's try it together.
Ready, go: ♫My paddle's keen and bright,♫
Good, now on 'flashing' we have finger 3 on E-flat. ♫Flashing♫
and while you're playing that E-flat something interesting is going to happen.
We're getting a little more advanced now. So while you're playing the E-flat, your finger 1 is going to
gently and subtly glide underneath to the F on your piano.
The reason for that is in just a moment we're going to need to shift position up
to a higher place on the piano so we can reach thi ...