# Note values

The counting itself is shared on the hub. This page is for the part that is only true on bass: the
subdivision is the biggest single decision you make about a part, and the lowest notes on the
instrument do not tolerate every choice equally.

## Subdivision lab

One pitch — the open A string (A1) — at four densities, so what you hear is purely the subdivision.
The page prints the spoken count for each and loops a bar of it at the practice bar's tempo, with the
beat accented.

- **Quarters** — four in the bar. You are the grid.
- **Eighths** — eight in the bar. The default rock and metal engine.
- **Sixteenths** — sixteen in the bar. Funk and gallop shorts.
- **Eighth-note triplets** — three even notes a beat, twelve in the bar. Not a gallop.

## What each value is for on bass

Whole (4 beats) is the floor while the drums own the grid. Half (2) implies harmony without competing.
Quarter (1) makes you the grid, and is unforgiving because there is nowhere to hide a late attack.
Eighth (½) is the rock and metal engine and costs you space. Sixteenth (¼) is funk and gallop shorts,
where the muting hand does as much rhythmic work as the plucking hand. Trade-offs, not a difficulty
ladder.

## Low notes need time

Your ear needs several complete cycles before it can decide what pitch it heard, and the bottom of a
bass is slow: low E (41 Hz) takes about 24 ms per cycle, open A (55 Hz) about 18 ms, open G (98 Hz)
about 10 ms. A sixteenth at 120 BPM lasts 125 ms — about five cycles of that low E and twelve of the
open G. Five is near the edge of what becomes a pitch, which is why fast lines on the low string sound
like thuds. So: move dense lines up, let the low notes be the long ones, and use ghosts instead of
pitches when a part needs sixteenth-note energy down low.

## Gallop math, and the triplet it is not

The gallop cell is one eighth plus two sixteenths — half a beat plus two quarter beats, exactly one
beat, four to a bar. The eighth-note triplet is three *even* notes in one beat. Count the gallop
"1 — & a" (the first note twice as long) and the triplet "1 trip let" (all equal). Sixteen notes a bar
against twelve; hear them side by side in the lab and you cannot un-hear the difference.

## Subdivision drill

Four bars at each density and back down, one pitch throughout. The beat never moves — only the number
of attacks. Watch the transitions (most people rush the first group of a new density) and watch the
mute, which has to improve as the grid gets denser.

## Common faults

Calling every fast thing "sixteenths"; gallop cells that do not add up to a beat; skipping rests;
sixteenths on the low string, which is a register fault rather than a counting one.

## Choosing a subdivision for a real part

Three questions in order. What is the drummer's densest hand doing — match it or sit one level under it.
How busy are the guitars or keys — the busier the middle, the sparser you want to be. Where does this
section need to go next — if the verse is already at sixteenths, the chorus has nowhere to climb. Then
commit for the whole section.

## The last note of a group

Dense playing goes wrong in one specific place: the final note of each group arrives early and drags the
bar forward. Isolate it. Play sixteenths but sound only the "a", counting the rest silently; then the "e"
and the "a"; then all four. Same drill on gallop cells with the short note before the beat.

## Rests count

A rest has the same arithmetic and the same requirement to be exact. Treat the moment the silence begins
as an attack you have to place. The test is that all your rests come out the same length — on bass they
usually do not, because a rest only starts when the string actually stops.