#gillok

[musicschema]

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"Fiesta," by Gillok, played the wrong way by students.

[musicschema]

“Fiesta,” by Gillok

Rather than accenting the first note of the first measure, students create a durational accent on the second beat of the first measure (and subsequent similar measures) by elongating the upbeat to an 8th note.

Discussion

Metric Schematic and Veridical Misalignment:The expectation is that when a shorter note precedes a longer note, the accent is placed on the longer note.

However, Gillok accents the upbeat short note, making it a downbeat. The children compensate for this uncomfortable rhythm by elongating the upbeat to an 8th note, forcing the durational or agogic accent on the second note, the way they expect it to be played.

A way of thinking of this metric schematic and veridical misalignment is to play the children’s song “Pop Goes the Weasel” with the accents on the short upbeats that precede the long downbeats, as Gillok did with “Fiesta.” This simple shift turns out to be incredibly hard to do, because of our schematic expectation that the long downbeats are where the accents should lie.