# 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. ## Start here: your first grid ### 1. The beat A beat is a steady tick, like a clock. Press play and tap your foot on every tick. **Pulse** hits x x x x Do this: Tap along for eight ticks without looking at the screen. ### 2. Count 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. **Four (4)** hits x x x x Do this: Press play and count with it, loudest on the 1. ### 3. Dots 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. **Clap and wait** Count x x x x Clap x x . x 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. ### 1. The 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 - - - **Whole note** Count x x x x Clap x . . . Do this: Press play, count 1 2 3 4 out loud, and clap only on the 1. ### 2. The 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 - **Half notes** Count x x x x Clap x . x . Do this: Clap on 1 and on 3. Keep counting through the dashes. ### 3. The 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 **Quarter notes** Count x x x x Clap x x x x Do this: Clap on every count, with the foot tapping alongside. ### 4. The 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 & **Eighth notes** Count x . x . x . x . Clap x x x x x x x x Do this: Tap your foot on the numbers. Clap on every number and every &. ### 5. The 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 ... **Sixteenth notes** Count x . . . x . . . x . . . x . . . Clap x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x x Do this: Slow the BPM down to 60 first. Foot on the numbers, clap on every syllable. ### 6. The 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 **Quarter rest** Count x x x x Clap x . x x Do this: Clap 1, rest on 2 (say it in your head, do not clap), clap 3 and 4. More about the staff (optional): the one line stands in for the drum or clap; bars and the time signature (4/4: four quarter-note beats to the bar); a drum cannot hold a note, so a hit is written as long as the gap to the next hit, up to a beat and a half; a dot makes a note half as long again; a triplet puts three in the time of two. Dotted notes and triplets come in later lessons. ## 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. | Note | Length | You count | |---|---|---| | Whole note | 4 beats | 1 - - - | | Half note | 2 beats | 1 - 3 - | | Quarter note | 1 beat | 1 2 3 4 | | Eighth note | half a beat | 1 & 2 & | | Sixteenth note | a quarter of a beat | 1 e & a 2 e & a | | Dotted quarter + eighth | 11/2 beats, then 1/2 | 1 - - & | | Triplet | three in one beat | tri-pe-let | | Quarter rest | 1 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** (pulse-meter.html): 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** (dividing.html): 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** (off-the-beat.html): To play hits between the beats while the beat itself stays steady. This is called syncopation. 4. **Two parts together** (two-parts.html): 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** (groups.html): 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** (timelines.html): 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** (grooves.html): To play a pattern that is shared between a low sound and a high sound, so it feels like a real groove. 8. **Cycles** (cycles.html): 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** (threes.html): 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** (swing.html): To divide a beat unevenly: long then short, instead of two equal halves. 11. **Two at once** (two-at-once.html): 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** (phrases.html): 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 Catalogue: every named rhythm. Labs: tap along, name that rhythm, swing ratio, circle lab. Printable sheet: sheet.html. Take it to your instrument: apply.html. ## 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.