Pitch tells you which key to play. Rhythm tells you when to play it and how long to hold it. Many beginners concentrate so hard on finding the right notes that rhythm slips, yet a tune with a few wrong notes in good time is easier to recognise than the right notes in the wrong time. The good news is that rhythm in beginner music uses a small set of symbols, and they all fit together like simple fractions.
The beat
Underneath almost all music there is a steady beat, also called the pulse. It is what you tap your foot to. The beat doesn't speed up for easy bits or slow down for hard bits. It stays even, like a clock ticking.
Every note length is measured in beats. So before you can count a rhythm, you need a steady beat to count against. Tap a slow, even beat on your knee and say "1, 2, 3, 4" over and over. If you can keep that going without speeding up, you are ready for note lengths.
Whole, half, quarter and eighth notes
Music is divided into bars by vertical barlines. In most beginner music, each bar holds four beats. The note shapes tell you how many of those beats each note lasts.
- A whole note is an open oval with no stem. It lasts four beats: a whole bar of 4/4.
- A half note is an open oval with a stem. It lasts two beats, half of a whole note.
- A quarter note is a filled-in oval with a stem. It lasts one beat.
- An eighth note is a filled-in oval with a stem and a flag, or with a beam joining it to its neighbours. It lasts half a beat, so two eighth notes fit into one beat.
Each note is worth twice the next one down. One whole note equals two half notes, four quarter notes or eight eighth notes. When you hold a long note, keep counting the beats in your head (or out loud) until it ends. A half note is not "a long note"; it is exactly two beats.
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Counting aloud with "and"
To count eighth notes, split each beat in half with the word "and", often written &: "1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &". The numbers fall on the beats and the "&"s fall exactly halfway between them.
Count this way even when there are no eighth notes in the bar. Saying the "&"s keeps the halfway points steady, so that when eighth notes do appear, they slot in evenly instead of rushing.
Rests: counting the silences
A rest is a silence of a set length. Every note length has a matching rest, and a rest is counted exactly like a note. You just don't play.
- A whole rest is a small block hanging down from the fourth line. It fills a whole bar of silence.
- A half rest is a small block sitting on the middle line. It lasts two beats.
- A quarter rest is a squiggle that looks a bit like a lightning bolt. It lasts one beat.
- An eighth rest looks like a small 7 with a dot on its top stroke. It lasts half a beat.
A common way to tell the first two apart: the whole rest hangs down like something heavy, the half rest sits on top like a hat. A whole rest is also used to show a completely silent bar in any time signature, not only in 4/4.
Time signatures: 4/4, 3/4 and 2/4
The two numbers at the start of a piece are the time signature. The top number says how many beats are in each bar. The bottom number says which note gets one beat. In beginner music the bottom number is usually 4, which means a quarter note gets one beat.
- 4/4 has four quarter-note beats in a bar. It is the most common time signature and is sometimes written as a large C, for common time. Count "1 2 3 4".
- 3/4 has three beats in a bar. It is the time of waltzes and minuets. Count "1 2 3", with a little natural weight on 1.
- 2/4 has two beats in a bar. It suits marches and many folk tunes. Count "1 2".
In 3/4, a whole note won't fit in a bar. To hold a note for the full three beats, you need a dotted half note.
Dotted notes
A dot after a note makes it half as long again. A half note lasts two beats, so a dotted half note lasts two plus one: three beats. A quarter note lasts one beat, so a dotted quarter note lasts one and a half beats.
The dotted quarter note is usually followed by an eighth note, which makes up the missing half beat. Counting with "&" makes this easy: the dotted quarter takes "1 & 2", and the eighth note falls on the "&" after 2.
This long-short pattern appears in a great many tunes. To learn it, clap it while counting every half beat out loud, "1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &", and clap only where the notes start.
Ties
A tie is a curved line joining two notes of the same pitch. It means: play the first note, then keep holding it for the length of the second note too. Don't play the second note again.
Ties are often used to hold a note across a barline, which no single note can do.
A tie looks a lot like a slur, which is also a curved line. The difference is that a tie joins two notes of the same pitch, while a slur joins notes of different pitches and means play them smoothly.
Practising with a metronome
A metronome clicks a steady beat at a speed you choose, measured in beats per minute (BPM). It is the best way to check whether your beat is truly even. Many free metronome apps and websites are available, and most digital pianos have one built in.
- Set a slow speed, such as 60 BPM, which is one click per second.
- Listen for a bar and count along out loud, "1 2 3 4", without playing.
- Clap the rhythm of your piece while counting, with the clicks on the numbers.
- Play the piece with one hand, still counting, at a speed where you make almost no mistakes.
- Only when it feels easy, raise the speed a little, a few BPM at a time.
For more on building up speed safely, see How to practise piano.
Try it in Pianuvo
Unit 1: Pulse and rhythm through playing covers quarter, half, dotted half and whole notes and their rests in 4/4, 3/4 and 2/4. The exercises show you on screen when each note is due and score how close your timing was. Eighth notes follow in Unit 3, and ties and dotted quarter notes in Unit 6.