On Trying to Match the Clapping
Rhythm of the Nubian song
"Nagrishad" (as recorded
by Hamza El Din) in a 6th Grade
Classroom Where No One's Nubian
You clap out six eight-beat measures
using this pattern of x's.
Tar and riq have separate rhythms.
You do not clap every measure.
You'll lose the beat if not your feet
as you try. My European
ears! American rock! Even
Bach would have trouble. Paul Simon
loves polyrhythms - African
beats. I cannot sustain Bartok
or even Dave Brubeck's "Take Five."
I am at home in 4/4 time.
The kids invented notation -
all 48 beats in one line,
shouted "ha" for unclapped spaces.
We all said, "I can't hear!" or "I
got lost!" foreign to this music
no matter how loudly it played.
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