This post will explain some basic rhythmic concepts that will need to be understood for future posts.
Music has an underlying pulse or beat. In most music it is fairly obvious and it is likely what you would tap your foot to. Rhythmic notation is a way of describing how our notes are related to that pulse. If we were to count the number of beats in a piece of music we would easily be dealing with hundreds of beats (or maybe thousands). Since this unreasonable to deal with ("on beat 256 the chord is A major" is difficult to find!) we use meter to group the number of beats into measures. The most common meter (also called "common time") is 4/4 and this simply put means that four beats create a measure.
= Common Time
In other words: measure one contains beats 1,2,3,4; measure two contains beats 5,6,7,8; measure three has beats 9,10,11,12: etc... With this system the highest we have to count to is 4.
Now that we understand the measure, we can use several types of note values to describe when a note is played (attacked) and how long the note is held (or when it's released).
A whole-note is a note that is held for 4 beats.
A whole-rest means that you don't play for the whole measure (4 beats).
A half-note means you hold the note for 2 beats.
A quarter-note is held for 1 beat.
An eighth-note equals half a beat. In other words: there are 2 eighth notes per beat.
Triplets divide the beat equally into 3.
Finally, sixteenth-notes divide the beat into 4 equal parts. In other words: 4 sixteenth-notes equal one beat.
If you develop a good understanding of these different rhythmic subdivisions and you can feel the difference between them, then it will be easier to use them in interesting combinations. You will also naturally feel faster and slower subdivisions like 32nd-notes or quarter-note triplets. I will post some different ideas for working with these subdivisions and expanding your rhythmic vocabulary soon.
Please post any questions or comments on this lesson as it will help me to make future lessons better.
Best,
Eric
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