I may have missed what you're asking about, but the ta/ti/tika quarter/eighth/sixteenth syllable system is a rhythm counting system to teach music, the Kodály Method[1]. This was coincidentally also what my first music teacher used but I didn't know the name until I was reminded of it even existing here and did a little digging.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kod%C3%A1ly_method

I mean just saying that out loud I can exactly see how it works, pretty interesting. Like why do I naturally say Tika faster than ti and ti faster than ta?

The /t/ consonant in the method requires you to have your tongue touch the roof of your mouth, and the /a/ vowel requires you to have your jaw hang low. The /ti/ sound in the method has your jaw fixed in place whereas it has to move to produce the /ta:/ sound.

I might still just be totally misreading things but I don't see how the assignment above is a valid, let alone a normal application of the Kodály Method?

Seems like the teacher really misunderstood what it was/meant for. I could totally be wrong here.

Translating sentences on paper (and again, how? why? by what metrics?) seems like the exact opposite of what the Kodály Method utilizes and its underpinning principles?

I understand the confusion and it's why I wasn't quite sure if I'd correctly identified what was happening. I took sentence and word as the music theory terms sentence[1] and motive[2]. Then translating the beats of an example into Kodály syllables seemed like a reasonable exercise that could be objectively evaluated.

[1] https://musictheory.pugetsound.edu/mt21c/SentenceStructure.h...

[2] https://musictheory.pugetsound.edu/mt21c/MotiveSection.html

You're asking me to tell about a homework from 1988, in dutch, when I was 8 years old. I think the last sentence was 'honderdduizend apen hingen daar te gapen' being translated to 'titi titi ta ta. Titi titi ta ta'.

The weird thing is: I could do it, even if I had no idea what I was doing. There was some pronunciation that seemed natural. My answers were mostly right ( Or maybe I got a good grade just for turning something in?).

Also, the teacher was a really nice lady, she was good with the piano and knew music, and she did teach us what she was supposed to. I have fond memories for her lessons. She succeeded.

I just think, the first lesson being a bit if a sampler, she didn't want to scare kids away. Artsy people sometimes have learned that math must be hard. So she accidentally oversimplified for me. I have no idea if the other kids felt the same. She might even have self-corrected starting the third lesson.

> I think the last sentence was 'honderdduizend apen hingen daar te gapen' being translated to 'titi titi ta ta. Titi titi ta ta'.

Oh wow, interesting, so the exercise was really taking a Dutch language sentence and breaking it into musical syllables? I'm more confused than before because the example here has 6 words and ends up as 8 notes -- but that could just be something I don't follow since I don't know Dutch. Unless 'honderdduizend' ('hundred thousand' it seems) is a compound that makes sense to split into two?

I don’t speak dutch but a language descendant from it and I completely understand how it would be broken down that way.

Effectively I would pronounce honderdduizend as 4 quick syllables.

Again do not speak dutch and translate the same work into my languages pronunciation which I wouldn’t be surprised if it wasn’t almost identical. “Honderd duisend” if you are interested.

>You're asking me to tell about a homework from 1988, in dutch, when I was 8 years old

Well asking certainly, but I'm not demanding? I don't know, seems like a very weird application. I certainly don't know ANY dutch, which doesn't help.

Is it just a "rhythm" mapping exercise based on the syllables? I probably read the first post a little bit to literally.

Yeah that 'asking' sounded wrong. Sorry. Read it as 'dont quote me on this, long time ago, memory untrustworthy'.

As an adult, I can say today: It is indeed a rhythm exercise, with some syllables being longer than others. I just wish someone had told me this at the time.