Dividing the beat

Almost every rhythm puts hits between the beats as well as on them. To place those hits you need names for the in-between places. This lesson cuts a beat into two equal halves (eighth notes), then into four equal quarters (sixteenth notes), and gives every place a name you can say.

From theory: Western theory: note values · time signatures

Halves: eighth notes

So far each dot has been one whole beat. A beat can be cut in half, and each half is called an eighth note, because eight of them fit in a bar of four beats. You count them by saying the beat number on the beat and & (say “and”) half-way between: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &.

How to read it: in every grid, the bold numbers along the top are the beats and the faint ones are the places between.

In notation: an eighth note is a quarter note with a flag, and when two or more sit together the flags join into a beam. Each beat gets its own beamed pair, so you can see the beats as pairs: 1 & 2 &. (This one is two beats long, so its time signature is 2/4.)

1. Tap the count 1 2 3 4 on your knee with the click, then press play.
2. Clap on every dot. That is two claps for every tap, twice as fast as the beat.
3. Say “1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &” out loud as you clap, with the numbers a little louder than the &s.
4. Clap only on the numbers (where you tap), still saying the &s. Then clap only on the &s, between your taps.

Quarters: sixteenth notes

Cut each eighth note in half again and you have sixteenth notes: four to every beat, sixteen in a bar of four beats. You count them 1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a. The number is still the beat, the & is still the half-way point, and the e and a are the two new places between them.

In notation: sixteenth notes have two beams. Four of them are joined under each beat, 1 e & a. More beams means shorter notes.

1. Keep tapping the count. Press play and clap on every dot: four claps to every tap.
2. Say “1 e & a 2 e & a” as you clap, with the numbers louder than the rest. Go slowly: the e and the a are the ones that rush.
3. Notice that the numbers and the &s are the eighth notes you already know. Sixteenths just add an e and an a after each one.

Mixing the two: the gallop

You can use both cuts inside one beat. The gallop plays an eighth note and then two sixteenth notes, long-short-short, over and over. It sounds like a horse, and it drives most heavy metal.

In notation: every beat is one eighth note (one beam) joined to two sixteenth notes (two beams). Where the beam thins from two lines to one is the short-short. The grid shows the same thing as a gap: a hit that lasts two columns, then two hits of one column each.

1. Say “one-and-a, two-and-a, three-and-a, four-and-a” while you tap the count.
2. “One” lasts half a beat; “and” and “a” are a quarter of a beat each.
3. Clap on every word.