Recently I’ve begun teaching that way of counting 16th notes in compound meters that I mentioned before. It’s going good. I never had a good way of counting those rhythms, so they were always a little mysterious. You miss the step of vocalizing them, which I think is important for understanding rhythm.
Basically, in any compound meter— 6/8, 12/8, 3/8, 9/8, 15/8— when 16th notes are involved, count 1e&a&a, instead of the 1&a we (I) use with 8th notes.
Sidebar for quibblers: Yes, the a partial, when we’re counting 8th notes, becomes a second & when there are any 16ths involved. It’s different! Not only is that, we’ve added two more as on the last two off-side 16th notes!
What can I say, the world’s an imperfect place. I’m prioritizing ease of speaking over consistent or unique syllables with this one. The only reason you need unique syllables is so you can refer to parts of a rhythm easily, e.g. your timing is off on the a of 2 there. So now you say your timing is off on the second a of 2 there instead.
