Sangeet Yatra

Learn Rhythm

Rhythm is when sounds happen. Learn it one small step at a time: a sentence to read, then something to do. No instrument needed.

From theory: Western theory: note values · Eastern theory: laya

Start here: your first grid

1The beat

A beat is a steady tick, like a clock. Press play and tap your foot on every tick.

Do this: Tap along for eight ticks without looking at the screen.

2Count it

Count the ticks out loud: 1 2 3 4, then 1 2 3 4 again. The 1 is the strongest, so say it louder. The > above it is the written mark for the same thing: play this one harder.

Do this: Press play and count with it, loudest on the 1.

3Dots and silence

A dot in the grid means make a sound. A small dot means stay silent. The Count row ticks the beat for you; the Clap row is yours.

Do this: Clap on each big dot in the Clap row. Stay silent on the small one, and keep counting out loud through the silence.

That is all you need to read any grid in the room: each column is one moment, each row is one sound, and the column that lights up is the one you are hearing. Next, the same rhythm written as notes, one note at a time.

Writing it down, one note at a time

Under each grid in the lessons the rhythm is also written as notes. You can clap along without them. What they add is how long each sound lasts. The grid shows it too: a bar after a dot is that note still sounding, and a small dot is silence. Each step below is one note, then something to do with it.

1The whole note

A whole note is an open circle with no stick. It lasts four beats: you clap once, and the note keeps sounding through 2, 3 and 4. That is the bar that runs after the dot in the grid.

You count: 1 – – –

Do this: Press play, count 1 2 3 4 out loud, and clap only on the 1.

2The half note

A half note is an open circle with a stick. It lasts two beats, so two of them fill the bar.

You count: 1 – 3 –

Do this: Clap on 1 and on 3. Keep counting through the dashes.

3The quarter note

A quarter note is a filled circle with a stick. It lasts one beat, so four fill the bar, one on every count.

You count: 1 2 3 4

Do this: Clap on every count, with the foot tapping alongside.

4The eighth note

An eighth note is a filled circle with a stick and a flag, or two joined by a bar. It lasts half a beat, so two fit in every beat. Say the second one “and” (&).

You count: 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &

Do this: Tap your foot on the numbers. Clap on every number and every &.

5The sixteenth note

A sixteenth note has two flags, or two bars. It lasts a quarter of a beat, so four fit in every beat: 1 e & a.

You count: 1 e & a 2 e & a …

Do this: Slow the BPM down to 60 first. Foot on the numbers, clap on every syllable.

6The rest

A rest is a silence with a length. A quarter rest is a squiggle: one beat of nothing. In the grid it is a small dot.

You count: 1 (rest) 3 4

Do this: Clap 1, rest on 2 (say it in your head, do not clap), clap 3 and 4.

More about the staff line, bars and the time signature (optional)
  • The one line stands in for the drum or the clap. Its height never changes, only when each note falls. A grid with several rows gets one line per row, stacked, so notes that fall together sit directly above one another. A × in place of a dot is how a hi-hat or cymbal is written. The two thick bars at the start of a line are the percussion clef, which only says this line is for unpitched sounds.
  • The vertical lines cut the music into bars. The two numbers at the start, such as 4/4, are the time signature: the top is how many beats are in a bar, the bottom says each beat is a quarter note. Tals and other cycles have no time signature; their sections are the bars.
  • A drum cannot hold a note, so a hit is written as long as the gap up to the next hit, up to a beat and a half. A longer gap becomes a rest. That is how the lessons say a rhythm out loud (“long, long, short”).
  • A dot after a note makes it half as long again, so a dotted quarter is one and a half beats. A triplet squeezes three notes into the time of two and is marked with a small 3. Both come later: dotted notes in Off the beat, triplets in Threes.

All the note lengths in one chart

Two rows in the chart are lengths you have not met yet: a dotted note, which is half as long again as the plain one, and a triplet, which fits three notes into one beat. You do not need either now. Dotted notes arrive in Off the beat and triplets in Threes, each with steps of its own.

NoteWhat it looks likeYou count
Whole note4 beats
1 – – –
Half note2 beats
1 – 3 –
Quarter note1 beat
1 2 3 4
Eighth notehalf a beat
1 & 2 &
Sixteenth notea quarter of a beat
1 e & a 2 e & a
Dotted quarter + eighth1½ beats, then ½
1 – – &
Tripletthree in one beat
tri-pe-let
Quarter rest1 beat of silence
1 (rest) 3 4

Keep this for reference. Quarter, eighth and sixteenth are the three you will use most; each is half of the one before it.

The ladder, step by step

Once the steps above feel easy, do the lessons in order. Each adds one idea to the ones before it. By the top of the ladder you can keep a steady beat, count a rhythm aloud including the places between the beats, clap one you hear, and recognise the named rhythms musicians trade by name: tresillo, clave (a short repeating key pattern from Cuba), bossa nova, shuffle, tāl. The instrument rooms teach how to play each one on their instrument, and every lesson links to them.

  1. The beat and the bar

    You learn: To keep a steady beat, and to hear which beats in a bar are strong (the first) and which are weak.

  2. Dividing the beat

    You learn: To cut one beat into 2 equal parts (eighth notes) or 4 (sixteenth notes) and say them aloud: 1 &, 1 e & a.

  3. Off the beat

    You learn: To play hits between the beats while the beat itself stays steady. This is called syncopation.

  4. Two parts together

    You learn: To do two different things in one bar, a low stomp and a clap, and to hear how moving them changes the feel.

  5. Groups of 3 and 2

    You learn: To count a pattern in short groups of 3 and 2 (1 2 3, 1 2 3, 1 2) instead of one long count to eight, and to play a hit on the start of each group.

  6. Timelines

    You learn: A timeline is a short pattern that repeats unchanged while everyone else plays around it. You learn the clave family.

  7. Grooves of the world

    You learn: To play a pattern that is shared between a low sound and a high sound, so it feels like a real groove.

  8. Cycles

    You learn: To hold a long cycle of 6 to 16 beats in your head by its sections, and to know where the first beat (sam) falls.

  9. Threes

    You learn: To cut one beat into 3 equal parts (a triplet), and to feel a bar of 6/8 as two big beats of three.

  10. Swing and feel

    You learn: To divide a beat unevenly: long then short, instead of two equal halves.

  11. Two at once

    You learn: To hold two different beats at the same time, three against two and four against three, and to say the single rhythm they make together.

  12. Phrases

    You learn: To hear a rhythm as a question and an answer, and to count the silence as part of it.

Look it up, or test yourself

CatalogueEvery named rhythm. Click a name and it appears, plays, and tells you which room teaches it on an instrument. LabsTap along and be scored, name that rhythm, set the swing, and make your own on the circle. Printable sheetEvery rhythm as a still grid with its count. Pick the levels and print it for the practice room. Take it to your instrumentEvery lesson on drums, guitar, ukulele, bass, piano, madal and tabla, with where to learn it.

Then play it on your instrument

This room teaches the rhythm. The rooms teach how to play it, and Take it to your instrument lists, lesson by lesson, what each one becomes on yours. Madal and tabla carry the strokes and bols, drums the kit, guitar and ukulele the strum, bass the line, piano the meter. Every rhythm in the catalogue lists where it is taught.