Sangeet Yatra

The beat and the bar

A beat is the steady tick you would tap your foot to. A bar is a short group of beats, with the first one strongest. This lesson is only those two things: keep the beat, then count it in a bar.

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

What you do in this room. Each grid is a row of notes drawn as dots. Press ▶ to hear them. Then do two things: tap the count (1 2 3 4) on your knee or with your foot, and clap once on each dot. Tap until the count is steady, then clap the dots while the count carries on.

A beat

A beat is not a rhythm yet. It is the even tick that rhythms are measured against, so it has to be steady before anything else works. Press play on the grid: every dot is one beat.

In notation: each tick is a quarter note, a filled dot on a stick, because it is a quarter of a four-beat bar. The 4/4 at the start says there are four beats in every bar, and the vertical line closes the bar. The note-value chart is on the front page.

How to read it: the numbers along the top are the beats and the dots are the ticks you hear. Nothing is stronger than anything else, so there is no > (accent) yet. A > over a dot would mean “play this one harder”.

  1. Press play and tap your knee (or the floor with your foot) on every dot, counting 1 2 3 4 out loud. Here the dots are the beat.
  2. Now clap on every dot too, so your tap and your clap land together. From the next lesson on they will not: you tap the count while you clap the rhythm.
  3. Tap with your eyes closed. Open them and see whether you were with it (the tap lab in Labs scores this).
  4. Stop the sound and keep tapping for four beats, then listen again. How far did you drift?

Strong and weak beats

Listen to any song and some beats feel stronger than others. Count the beats in a loop, 1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4: the 1 is the strong beat and the rest are weak. One loop of counts is a bar. Bars are usually 2, 3 or 4 beats long, and the time signature at the start of the music says which. The three grids below hold the same steady quarter-note beat. Only the grouping changes, one step at a time.

How to read it: a > above a dot is an accent, as on sheet music. It means play that beat harder, and you will hear it louder and a little higher. A dot with no > is a weak beat.

1Four beats to a bar: 4/4

4/4 is a time signature. The top number is how many beats are in each bar: four. The bottom number says what kind of note is one beat: a 4 means a quarter note, the filled dot on a stick you met above. So 4/4 reads as “four quarter-note beats to the bar”: strong, weak, weak, weak. It is the most common bar in popular music, which is why the beat grid above was already written in it.

Do this: Press play and tap the count 1 2 3 4 on your knee, saying it aloud. Say the 1 louder than the rest, and clap hard on 1 and softly on 2, 3 and 4.

2Two beats to a bar: 2/4

2/4 keeps the same bottom number, so each beat is still a quarter note and nothing is faster or slower. Only the top number changes: the bar is now two beats long, so the strong beat comes round twice as often. It is strong, weak, strong, weak, which is the step of a march.

Do this: Count 1 2, 1 2 and clap hard-soft, hard-soft. Notice the same beat as before, now with a strong beat on every second tap.

3Three beats to a bar: 3/4

3/4 is three quarter-note beats to the bar: strong, weak, weak. The strong beat comes round every third tap, which gives the lilt of a waltz. Same beat again, grouped in threes.

Do this: Count 1 2 3, 1 2 3 and clap hard-soft-soft. Then go back to Four and feel how the same tap now sits in a different group.

In notation: the three bars are the same quarter notes. The only things that differ are the top number of the time signature (2, 3 or 4 beats to the bar) and where the barline falls. The > on the first note of each bar is the accent you can hear.

  1. Turn the sound off and keep counting the bar you like best. The strong beat is now in you, not in the click.
  2. Switch between 4/4, 2/4 and 3/4 without stopping the tap: only where you put the strong beat changes.

Before you go on

  • Tap the count for a minute at 70 BPM, then at 100, without speeding up
  • Count a march, a waltz and a four out loud, accenting the 1
  • Tell a bar of 2, 3 and 4 apart by ear
  • Turn on the pattern click in the bar below and stay with it

Play it on your instrument

You have been clapping this. On an instrument it is the same rhythm, with each clap played as a note or stroke while you keep tapping the count.

Every lesson on every instrument: Take it to your instrument.