2. Notes and Rhythmic Value
● If you've been playing along you know that music
notation is time and pitch
Pitch
Time
3. Time Signature
● You also know that time signatures indicate how
many beats we count in a measure and what
note value gets the beat.
4. Naming Convention – Quarter Note
● We name notes based on
how much time they take up
● Since common time is 4/4 we
can think of it like a pie
● Divide it into 4 pieces and you
get “quarters”
● It then takes 4 “Quarter
Notes” to fill the pie
5. Naming Convention – Half Note
● If we have something that
takes 2 notes to fill the pie, it
takes up half the pie
● We call this the “Half Note”
6. Naming Convention – Whole Note
● Continuing with our structure,
something that last all four
beats in common time takes
up the whole pie
● We call this then the “Whole
Note”
7. Naming Convention – Eighth Note
● The same is true for the
opposite direction
● If we continue to divide the
pie from quarter notes, we get
eighths
● It takes 8 “Eighth Notes” fill a
measure
8. Naming Convention – Sixteenth Note
● We can keep dividing and
adding “flags” to the note
head but each time, we
double the previous division
● It takes 16 “Sixteenth Notes”
notes to fill a pie
9. Beats
● Another way to consider
notes is how many beats
they get
● Here is a diagram of the
note heads and their
equivalent beats
● The Sixteenth Note
would be ¼ of the beat
●
A 32nd
Note would be 1/8
of a beat
11. Doing the Math
● When it comes down to it, reading rhythm is
simply learning how to divide time into the
corresponding note values
12. Doing the Math
● In common time 4/4 you know that there should
be 4 quarter notes in each measure
● We use this to know how far to count
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
13. Doing the Math
● For longer notes we simply connect the numbers
(or drop them)
● We will use a – to show the connection
1 2 - 3 4 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 1 2 3 4
14. Doing the Math
● We know that quarters get full numeric values, 1,
2, 3, 4.
● Eighth notes are ½ a beat so we add “and” after
the beat number (i.e. 4 &)
1 2 - 3 4 & 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 1 2 & 3 4
&
15. Doing the Math
● Sixteenth Notes are ¼ a beat so we need 4
syllables to be able to speak them
● We have & already so we add “e” and “a”
1 2 - 3 4 & 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 1 2 e & a 3 a 4 &
16. Doing the Math
● No matter what, the beats always land in the
same place
● Being able to speak these rhythms takes practice
● Try to read the line below in tempo (start slowly)
1 2 - 3 4 & 1 - 2 - 3 - 4 1 2 e & a 3 a 4 &
