I Hear the Mill Wheel

Hello and welcome back. I'm Joseph Hoffman. Today we're learning a traditional song that comes from Canada. It's called "I Hear the Mill Wheel." What is a mill wheel? Oh, oh, I know! You do? Great! Go ahead and explain it for us Princess. A mill is a place where you grind wheat into flour. So a mill wheel is a large wheel attached on the outside of the mill that is partially submerged in a river or stream. And then the water from the river pushes and turns the wheel. That's right! The spinning wheel makes an axle spin, making gears turn, and giving power to the grinding machine inside the mill. The big stone wheels grind away and out comes flour! Flour for making bread, cakes, or cookies! That's right! Thanks for such a clear explanation of what a mill wheel is. Now, let's listen to "I Hear the Mill Wheel." Will you guys help me sing it? Princess: Sure thing. Chef: You bet Here I have written the beginning of the rhythm for "I Hear the Mill Wheel." You might recognize this rhythm TI-TI-KI 'I hear the mill wheel' TI-TI-KI TI-TI Remember, this is an eighth note with two sixteenth notes. One beam is what we see for eighth notes. When we have these two beams there's sixteenth notes. So these two notes go twice as fast as eighth notes. TI-TI-KI Say it with me. TI-TI-KI Altogether we get: TI-TI-KI TI-TI Say it with me go: TI-TI-KI TI-TI Now I'd like you to try and figure out what is happening in these 2 beats. Here it goes: What did you hear? Listen one more time. What did you hear in this beat? If you said TI-KI-TI-KI you're correct. There were four sounds in this beat. The only way you can fit four sounds in a beat is to go this fast. And then what did you hear in this beat? If you said eighth notes you're correct. Let's say it all together. Say the rhythm words with me as we point each beat go: TI-TI-KI TI-TI TI-KI-TI-KI TI-TI Now can you help me figure out these beats? Let's just do these two. We have: What did you hear? The correct answer is TI-TI-KI TI-TI It's same rhythm we had up here. TI-TI-KI TI-TI Now can you figure out the rest? Listen. What did you hear? If you said two quarter-notes you're correct. Remember a quarter note fills up an entire beat. TI-TI-KI TI-TI TA TA Can you sing the whole thing with me from the start? Point with me, go. TI-TI-KI TI-TI TI-KI-TI-KI TI-TI TI-TI-KI TI-TI TA TA Great job. Let's check out the sheet music. Here's the score for "I Hear the Mill Wheel." Today let's play a little hunting game. I'm going to name some different things from music and see if you can find it on the score and point to it for me. Can you point to a forte symbol? If you're pointing right here you're correct. Remember forte means to play loudly with strength. Can you point to a slur? A slur is a symbol we've learned recently. A curved line that connects two or more notes of different pitches. Like here's a slur you could have pointed here or here. Anytime you have a curved line connecting different notes, that's a slur. Can you point to any notes that are staccato? A staccato is a note that has a dot under the note head or over the note head like this. These are all staccatos or staccati. Can you point to the time signature for me? If you're pointing right here to that 2/4 you're correct. I'd like to circle that top number because that reminds me how many beats are in every measure. Can you point to any flat symbols? There are lots of them. You could be pointing here here here here here here here here. Any of these little symbols are the flats that tell you which notes to make flat. Remember we're doing black key pentascales these days, so there's always going to be lots of flats or sharps. Now remember the sheet music is available from our website so I encourage you to download and print out a copy for yourself that you can use in your practicing. Now let's notice something interesting about the rhythms. You see we've got our TI-TI-KI TI-TI TI-KI-TI-KI TI-TI See how the melody drops down into the bass clef here we start up up in treble clef the melody's in the right hand, but then here the left hand is going to help out with the melody. Sometimes that's called passing the melody between the hands like in a relay race where you pass a baton and now someone else is in charge of running. You can pass the baton so to speak between the hands. Right hand plays ♫I hear the mill wheel ti-ka ti-ka♫ the left hand takes over right there. Then passes the baton back to the right hand ♫ta-ka♫ ♫I hear the mill wheel turning♫ Here the left hand also helps out with 'tur-' and then 'ning' is the right hand. So to know which hand to play just follow the notes. If you're up on the top staff it's right hand. When it dips down to the the bass staff then it's the left hand. Can you tell me the letter name for this first note? If you said G-flat you're correct. Now can you name the rest of the notes in this measure? Name them all. G-flat, now keep going yourself. The correct answer is G-flat F G-flat. Now let's pause. Why is this a G flat? It looks just like a G right? No, hopefully you remembered that the law of flats is the law is the The law is that if you have a flat in front of a certain note of a certain pitch, that flat lives for the whole measure u ...