When you move your music phrase later in the measure, so that the melody
starts after the beat, it’s called back phrasing. As you can tell from Figure 4-7,
our song now starts on beat two, with a rest on beat one. Try it out! Make
sure you are playing or singing this with the strong accent, as usual, on the
first beat of the measure. ONE two ONE two. Back phrasing can be a tricky
thing to get a handle on, so if a natural-sounding rhythm eludes you the first
couple of times, that’s okay. You see how it changes the song?Front phrasing ......................................................................................
If we go the other way and front phrase it — or move the melody forward by
one beat — the result looks like Figure 4-8.Now, going back to tempo for a second, try playing or singing these varia-
tions at a very fast or ridiculously slow tempo, just to see what those changes
do to the overall feel of the song. Bet you never thought that “Shave and a
Haircut” could sound so spooky! It’s funny how even slight changes in tempo
can change the mood of a song so much.Let’s try to do a skipping variation of the back-phrased version of “Shave and
a Haircut” (Figure 4-9).Bear with us for one more example as we now syncopate the original melody
(Figure 4-10).& 4
(^4) Œ œ. œ
œ. œ œb. œ ̇ œ. œ œ
Figure 4-9:
Making
“Shave and
a Haircut”
skip along.
& 4
(^4) Ó Œ œ
œ œ œb œ Œ œ œ Ó
Figure 4-8:
“Shave
and a
Haircut” —
front
phrased.
36 Part I: Basics and Rhythm