Getting the Rhythm of a 24/16 Time Signature

[sephethus]

Bach's WTC Prelude no. 15 in G Major is in a 24/16 time signature.  I want to learn it.

Following Bernhard's advise I usually listen to the piece played by several different people, mainly Fredrich Gulda in this case.  I "tap" to the beat of it to get the rhythm down.

I'm thinking I should just make it more like a 6/4 time signature instead, but a friend suggested 1 e&a 2 e&a 3 e&a 4 e&a 5 e&a 6.  Problem with that is I can't say that as fast as the tempo it's normally played at.

What do you guys suggest I do to count this out?

[nyiregyhazi]

Bach's WTC Prelude no. 15 in G Major is in a 24/16 time signature.  I want to learn it.

Following Bernhard's advise I usually listen to the piece played by several different people, mainly Fredrich Gulda in this case.  I "tap" to the beat of it to get the rhythm down.

I'm thinking I should just make it more like a 6/4 time signature instead, but a friend suggested 1 e&a 2 e&a 3 e&a 4 e&a 5 e&a 6.  Problem with that is I can't say that as fast as the tempo it's normally played at.

What do you guys suggest I do to count this out?

Why would you need to count? It's not as if failing to count is going to leave you accidentally playing groups of 4 instead of triplets surely? Just start by feeling small 3s and work your way up to feeling either 8 quavers or 4 crotchets. The piece is basically just a simple 4/4 with subdivisions. I'm not one of these anti-counting people- but counting is not a goal in itself. With such a simple flow of continuous movement, there's simply no reason to get caught up in counting individual notes. It just doesn't serve any purpose, because there's no complexity at all in the durations of the notes.

[scottmcc]

You could just count it "bun duh duh duh" or something like that instead of "one-ee-and-a" which you will find you can do much faster.

[iratior]

The 24/16 rhythm is a lot simpler than it looks at first.  Basically, the time within each measure splits into 24 parts:  8 clusters of parts where each cluster consists of 3 consecutive time intervals each of which is a sixteenth note long.  If you wanted to, you could count the first cluster with an 'A', the second with an 'and', the third with a "B", the fourth with an "and", and so on, so the counting of a measure would be "A and B and C and D and".  Of course, if it's actually not just counting aloud, but SINGING a count that you are wondering about, you're out of luck because the melody is just going to go way too fast to be sung.  The best you could hope for would be a simple harmonization in eighth notes.