Stop 2 of 6
Note values and rests
Whole, half, quarter and eighth notes and their rests: reading durations.
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Stop 2 of 6
Whole, half, quarter and eighth notes and their rests: reading durations.
You can feel the pulse now. Next we measure what happens on top of it: how long each note lasts. Just as the alphabet lets you write any word with 26 letters, a handful of symbols called lets you write any rhythm. By the end of this stop you'll be able to read a line of rhythm, count it out loud and strum it without having heard it first.
Listen to this example. The pulse (the click) never changes, but in each bar the guitar strums more often: first one strum lasting the whole bar, then two, then four and finally eight.
Every bar lasts the same —four beats— but it's shared out differently. That's exactly what note values measure: how much time a note takes up relative to the beat. Notice that the count tells you where each strum lands: in the first bar there's only a "1"; in the last, "&"s appear between the numbers.
Note values work like a pizza cut in half again and again. The whole thing is the ; cut in two it gives two ; each half in two, ; each quarter in two, ; and each eighth in two, .
| Note value | How it's drawn | Beats in 4/4 | Counted |
|---|---|---|---|
| Whole note | Hollow head, no stem | 4 | 1 (2 3 4) |
| Half note | Hollow head with stem | 2 | 1 (2) |
| Quarter note | Filled head with stem | 1 | 1 |
| Eighth note | Quarter with one flag, or joined by a beam | ½ | 1 & |
| Sixteenth note | Two flags or two beams | ¼ | 1 e & a |
In this stop we work mainly on the first four; sixteenths get their moment at the end of the stage.
In American English, note values are named as fractions of the whole note: half (½), quarter (¼), eighth (⅛), sixteenth (1/16). That's why the bottom 4 in "4/4" means "quarter note": it's a quarter of a whole note. The British names (semibreve, minim, crotchet, quaver, semiquaver) and the Spanish ones (redonda, blanca, negra, corchea) come from older notation, when longer note values were the norm. Knowing both systems helps you read method books from anywhere.
A note value doesn't last a fixed number of seconds: it lasts a fraction of the beat, and the beat depends on the tempo. At 60 BPM a quarter note lasts 1 second and a whole note 4; at 120 BPM the quarter lasts half a second and the whole note 2. That's why the same score can sound calm or urgent: note values fix the proportions and tempo fixes the scale. To work it out, multiply the note's beats by .
Every note value is built from three parts:
When several eighth notes follow each other inside one beat, they're joined by a beam instead of flags. Beams are a visual aid: they show you at a glance where each beat begins. Compare separate eighths with beamed ones:
A is time with no sound, and it's measured just like notes. Every note value has a rest of the same length. On the guitar a rest doesn't mean "do nothing": it means cut the sound and keep counting.
| Rest | Looks like | Lasts |
|---|---|---|
| Whole rest | Block hanging from the 4th line | 4 beats (or a whole bar) |
| Half rest | Block sitting on the 3rd line | 2 beats |
| Quarter rest | Zigzag stroke | 1 beat |
| Eighth rest | A "7" with a dot | ½ beat |
Sometimes you need a length that isn't on the tree, such as three beats. There are two tools for that.
A to the right of a note adds half its value. A half note (2) with a dot lasts 2 + 1 = 3 beats. A dotted quarter (1) lasts 1 + ½ = 1½ beats, and is usually followed by an eighth that completes the two beats.
A is a curve joining two notes of the same pitch: the second one is not played, it just lengthens the first. The total length is the sum of both.
In the third bar, the half note tied to the quarter sounds like a single three-beat note: exactly the same as a dotted half. This example uses open string 3 (G), written on the second line of the .
Because a tie can do something a dot can't: cross a bar line or the middle of the bar. A note that starts on beat 4 and lasts two beats can't be written as a half note, since it would spill out of the bar: it's written as a quarter tied to a quarter in the next bar. Also, the convention in 4/4 is to keep the middle of the bar visible (between beats 2 and 3), so a note running from "2" into "3" is usually written as two tied quarters. The tie will be the star of syncopation at the end of this stage.
When you meet a new rhythm, don't try to play it straight away. Follow these four steps and almost any line will come out first time:
Step 1 of 4 · 1. Find the beat
Look at the time signature and find where each beat begins. The beams on the eighths help.
Try the four steps on this open-string melody. The notation on top gives you the rhythm; the tab below, the string:
Read each example with the four steps and strum it on the chord shown. All strums are downstrokes; on the rests, mute the strings.
Goal: Strum both lines back to back without stopping, counting out loud, at 70 BPM.
Play the melody from the previous scene with a pick. Let the half notes and the whole note ring for their full value: don't lift the pick too early or attack the next note ahead of time. On the rest in bar 3, rest your hand on the strings to cut the sound.
Goal: Play the open-string melody giving every note its full length, at 66 BPM, twice in a row.
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