Playing in two-time signatures at the same time...? When Dr James Humberstone first gave us this I was confused, to say the least. In groups of three, we had to figure out how to perform this. At first, I assumed it was similar to triplet counting but eventually we found out you only count the first beat of the bar and assume the rest of it yourself.
From above we were introduced to Mensural or Prolation Canons. Josquin Des Prez was known as "one of the greatest composers of Reinassance Europe" (Brittanica) and most of his best work was mensural canons. In the form of polyphonic texture, a Mensural canon occurs when the same melody is played but differs in time. For example, Agnus (mensural canon shown in class) has the same descending pattern played over and over again but somewhere in semibreves, quavers etc and others were double, half or even triple time. This can lead to some beautiful passages, harmonies and also amazing dissonance that resolves itself. After looking at a few modern examples we set out to make our own (see below)
I knew that I wanted to use a string quartet and the C Major Scale so I set out to add a few different rhythms and then just double the time in each part. In musescore3 (the software I used) this is really simple as you just copy it and then under 'edit' just click 'paste in double time' or 'paste in half time to do this. After finishing this I decided to extend the task by creating a second theme. This theme still based around C Major had a more simple movement and gave the piece its name 'Withering Waves' as I feel it reflects the ocean and the waves.
In the classroom setting, this would be really effective as a composition task due to how easy it is. You could differentiate it in so many ways simply by how the task is scaffolded. Any student is capable of this and by using programs like MuseScore and Sibelius this can be done easily. You can even challenge the students by getting them to perform there own pieces.