Reading Music · Chapter 5 of 12

Note Values and Rests

Where a note sits tells you which key to play. Its shape tells you how long to hold it.

Music moves to a steady beat, the pulse you might tap your foot to. Each kind of note lasts a certain number of beats. In most music you’ll start with, the quarter note gets one beat, so that’s how we’ll count here. (The next chapter shows how the time signature sets the beat.)

The notes, from long to short

Note	Looks like	Beats
Whole note	an open oval, no stem	4
Half note	an open oval with a stem	2
Quarter note	a filled-in oval with a stem	1
Eighth note	a quarter note with one flag; groups are joined by one beam	½
Sixteenth note	two flags, or two beams	¼

Each note is half as long as the one above it. So one whole note lasts as long as two half notes, or four quarter notes, or eight eighth notes, or sixteen sixteenth notes. Listen: each line below takes the same amount of time.

One whole note: 4 beats.

Two half notes: 2 beats each.

Four quarter notes: 1 beat each.

Eight eighth notes: ½ beat each. Count “1 and 2 and…”, written “1 & 2 &”.

Sixteen sixteenth notes: ¼ beat each, counted “1 e & a” (say “one ee and uh”).

A stem can point up or down. On a single line of music, notes below the middle line usually have stems going up on the right, and notes on or above it have stems going down on the left. Which way it points doesn’t change how long the note lasts.

Rests: counted silence

A rest tells you to stay silent for a number of beats. Every note value has a matching rest. You still count the beats of a rest, you just don’t play.

A whole rest (4 beats) hangs down from line 4. A half rest (2 beats) sits on the middle line, like a hat. Then quarter rests (1 beat), eighth rests (½) and sixteenth rests (¼). A whole rest is also used for a whole bar of silence, however many beats the bar has.

Dots

A dot after a note makes it longer by half its own value. A half note lasts 2 beats, so a dotted half note lasts 2 + 1 = 3 beats. A dotted quarter note lasts 1 + ½ = 1½ beats, and it’s often followed by an eighth note to finish the second beat.

Bar 1: a dotted half note (3 beats) and a quarter (1). Bar 2: a dotted quarter (1½), an eighth (½) and a half note (2).

Ties

A tie is a curved line joining two notes of the same pitch. Play the first note and hold it through the second, without playing it again: the lengths add up. Ties let a note last across a bar line, or make lengths no single note can show.

The tie joins beat 4 of the first bar to beat 1 of the next: play once, hold for two beats. A curved line between different notes is a slur, which means “play smoothly”; you’ll meet it in chapter 11.

Triplets

Sometimes a beat is split into three equal notes instead of two. Three eighth notes played in the time of two are a triplet, marked with a small 3 over or under the group. Count them “1-trip-let, 2-trip-let.”

Two triplets, one on beat 1 and one on beat 2, then a half note. Each triplet fills exactly one beat.

Remember

Whole 4, half 2, quarter 1, eighth ½, sixteenth ¼ (when the quarter note gets the beat).
Every note has a matching rest. Count rests too.
A dot adds half the note’s value. A tie joins two notes of the same pitch into one longer sound.
A triplet fits three notes into the time of two.