Hip Hop: Mix Rhymes and Beats

Instrumental Activity

Identify the Drum and the Snare

• An important part of hip-hop drum patterns is the relationship between the kick drum and the snare drum.
• Play rap example 2. Listen to the kick drum and snare pattern at 0:33. In the first rap line, the kick drum can be heard with the word "real" and the snare drum can be heard with the word "feel." Notice how the kick drum is heard on beats 1 and 3 and the snare drum is heard on beats 2 and 4. There are other places where the kick and snare drums are heard as well.
• Play rap example 2 again. Tap your foot along with the kick drum and pat or clap along with the snare drum. When you are comfortable with the pattern, improvise some variations.

Create an Additional Track

• Practice playing along with the G minor pentatonic scale on an instrument of your choice.

Tune Your Guitar

• Play rap example 2 and create an additional musical part using pitches from the G minor pentatonic scale. Be careful not to crowd the overall sound by playing too many notes. Hip-hop tracks often depend on open musical space to leave room for the rap verses to stand out.
• Optional: Perform your instrumental part for others.

Advanced Percussion Activity

• Listen to the four rap tracks. The relationship between the bass and the drums is also important in hip-hop music. Pay attention to the rhythms heard in the bass line and notate them.
  

Mellow track

Medium track

Energetic track

Caribbean track

• Without the audio files, sing one of the bass lines to yourself and try to create a drum pattern that works well with it. If possible, record your ideas on a multitrack recording system, with the bass line and drum parts on separate tracks.

Advanced Instrumental Activity

• Traditional Western harmony is generally tertian, meaning the chords are built with 3rds. For example, a C minor triad consist of C, E, and G. The E is a 3rd away from C and the G is a 3rd away from E. Quartal harmony builds chords from 4ths. Some classical composers and jazz players began experimenting extensively with quartal harmony in the twentieth century.
• To work with quartal harmony, practice playing these three-note chords that can be derived from stacked 4ths in the key of C Dorian. Play the notes in each chord one at a time and, if possible, simultaneously.

• Notice that all of the intervals in these chords are perfect 4ths, except for the interval between E and A, which is an augmented 4th. This 4th is also called a tritone, because it is equal to the distance of three whole steps.
• Practice playing the chords in different sequences. Try to hear when a particular sequence of chords sounds most relaxed and when it has the most amount of tension.
• When you are comfortable playing these chords, listen to the keyboard part of the Caribbean track at 1:54. Use your ear to determine which quartal chords in C Dorian are being used.
• Then, improvise quartal arpeggios or quartal chord progressions in C Dorian elsewhere in the sound file.

You may now choose another Performance Activity.