Notes designate the duration and pitch of sounds in music and tell you how long to play, while rests designate silence and tell you when to stop playing or breathe to make the music pleasing. The document discusses different types of notes like whole, half, quarter and eighth notes and their time values, as well as different types of rests like whole, half, quarter and eighth rests and their corresponding time values. Adding a dot after a note or rest increases its value by half.