Teachers, note that this means that children can be introduced to the concept of meter long before they are reading music. See Meter Activities for some suggestions. Meters can be classified by counting the number of beats from one strong beat to the next. For example, if the meter of the music feels like "strong-weak-strong-weak", it is in duple meter. Most people don't bother classifying the more unusual meters, such as those with five beats in a measure.
Meters can also be classified as either simple or compound. In a simple meter, each beat is basically divided into halves. In compound meters, each beat is divided into thirds.
A borrowed division occurs whenever the basic meter of a piece is interrupted by some beats that sound like they are "borrowed" from a different meter. One of the most common examples of this is the use of triplets to add some compound meter to a piece that is mostly in a simple meter. See Dots, Ties, and Borrowed Divisions to see what borrowed divisions look like in common notation. To learn to recognize meter, remember that in most Western music the beats and the subdivisions of beats are all equal and even.
So you are basically listening for a running, even pulse underlying the rhythms of the music. For example, if it makes sense to count along with the music "ONE-and-Two-and-ONE-and-Two-and" with all the syllables very evenly spaced then you probably have a simple duple meter. Make sure numbers always come on a pulse, and "one" always on the strongest pulse.
This may take some practice if you're not used to it, but it can be useful practice for anyone who is learning about music. To help you get started, the figure below sums up the most-used meters. To help give you an idea of what each meter should feel like, here are some animations with sound of duple simple , duple compound , triple simple , triple compound , quadruple simple , and quadruple compound meters.
You may also want to listen to some examples of music that is in simple duple , simple triple , simple quadruple , compound duple , and compound triple meters. Normally, all the measures of a piece of music must have exactly the number of beats indicated in the time signature.
The beats may be filled with any combination of notes or rests with duration values also dictated by the time signature , but they must combine to make exactly the right number of beats. If a measure or group of measures has more or fewer beats, the time signature must change. There is one common exception to this rule. There are also some less common exceptions not discussed here. Often, a piece of music does not begin on the strongest downbeat. Instead, the strong beat that people like to count as "one" the beginning of a measure , happens on the second or third note, or even later.
In this case, the first measure may be a full measure that begins with some rests. But often the first measure is simply not a full measure. This shortened first measure is called a pickup measure. If there is a pickup measure, the final measure of the piece should be shortened by the length of the pickup measure although this rule is sometimes ignored in less formal written music.
For example, if the meter of the piece has four beats, and the pickup measure has one beat, then the final measure should have only three beats.
Of course, any combination of notes and rests can be used, as long as the total in the first and final measures equals one full measure. Any phrase of music not just the first one may begin someplace other than on a strong downbeat.
All the notes before the first strong downbeat of any phrase are the pickup notes to that phrase. A piece that is using pickup measures or pickup notes may also sometimes place a double bar with or without repeat signs inside a measure, in order to make it clear which phrase and which section of the music the pickup notes belong to. If this happens which is a bit rare, because it can be confusing to read , there is still a single bar line where it should be, at the end of the measure.
A half note is half the length of a whole note; a quarter note is half the length of a half note; an eighth note is half the length of a quarter note, and so on. See Duration:Note Length. The same goes for rests. See Duration: Rest Length. But what if you want a note or rest length that isn't half of another note or rest length? One way to get a different length is by dotting the note or rest. A dotted note is one-and-a-half times the length of the same note without the dot.
In other words, the note keeps its original length and adds another half of that original length because of the dot. So a dotted half note, for example, would last as long as a half note plus a quarter note, or three quarters of a whole note. Make groups of equal length on each side, by putting a dotted note or rest in the box. A note may have more than one dot. Each dot adds half the length that the dot before it added. For example, the first dot after a half note adds a quarter note length; the second dot would add an eighth note length.
A dotted half lasts as long as a half note plus a quarter note. The same length may be written as a half note and a quarter note tied together. Tied notes are written with a curved line connecting two notes that are on the same line or the same space in the staff.
Notes of any length may be tied together, and more than two notes may be tied together. The sound they stand for will be a single note that is the length of all the tied notes added together. This is another way to make a great variety of note lengths. Tied notes are also the only way to write a sound that starts in one measure and ends in a different measure. Ties may look like slurs , but they are not the same; a slur connects to notes with different pitches and is a type of articulation.
Dots and ties give you much freedom to write notes of varying lengths, but so far you must build your notes from halves of other notes. If you want to divide a note length into anything other than halves or halves of halves - if you want to divide a beat into thirds or fifths, for example - you must write the number of the division over the notes.
These unusual subdivisions are called borrowed divisions because they sound as if they have been borrowed from a completely different meter. They can be difficult to perform correctly and are avoided in music for beginners. The only one that is commonly used is triplets , which divide a note length into equal thirds. Notes in jazzy-sounding music that has a "swing" beat are often assumed to be triplet rhythms, even when they look like regular divisions; for example, two written eighth notes or a dotted quarter-sixteenth might sound like a triplet quarter-eighth rhythm.
In jazz and other popular music styles, a tempo notation that says swing usually means that all rhythms should be played as triplets. Straight means to play the rhythms as written.
Some jazz musicians prefer to think of a swing rhythm as more of a heavy accent on the second eighth, rather than as a triplet rhythm, particularly when the tempo is fast. This distinction is not important for students of music theory, but jazz students will want to work hard on using both rhythm and articulation to produce a convincing "swing".
A syncopation or syncopated rhythm is any rhythm that puts an emphasis on a beat , or a subdivision of a beat, that is not usually emphasized. One of the most obvious features of Western music, to be heard in most everything from Bach to blues, is a strong, steady beat that can easily be grouped evenly into measures. In other words, each measure has the same number of beats, and you can hear the measures in the music because the first beat of the measure is the strongest.
See Time Signature and Meter for more on this. This makes it easy for you to dance or clap your hands to the music. But music that follows the same rhythmic pattern all the time can get pretty boring. Syncopation is one way to liven things up.
The music can suddenly emphasize the weaker beats of the measure, or it can even emphasize notes that are not on the beat at all. For example, listen to the melody in Figure 1. The first measure clearly establishes a simple quadruple meter "ONE and two and THREE and four and" , in which important things, like changes in the melody, happen on beat one or three.
But then, in the second measure, a syncopation happens; the longest and highest note is on beat two, normally a weak beat. In the syncopation in the third measure, the longest note doesn't even begin on a beat; it begins half-way through the third beat. Some musicians would say "on the up-beat " or "on the 'and' of three". Now listen to another example from a Boccherini minuet.
Again, some of the long notes begin half-way between the beats, or "on the up-beat". Notice, however, that in other places in the music, the melody establishes the meter very strongly, so that the syncopations are easily heard to be syncopations.
Another way to strongly establish the meter is to have the syncopated rhythm playing in one part of the music while another part plays a more regular rhythm, as in this passage from Scott Joplin see Figure 1. Syncopations can happen anywhere: in the melody , the bass line , the rhythm section, the chordal accompaniment. Any spot in the rhythm that is normally weak a weak beat, an upbeat, a sixteenth of a beat, a part of a triplet can be given emphasis by a syncopation. It can suddenly be made important by a long or high note in the melody, a change in direction of the melody, a chord change, or a written accent.
Depending on the tempo of the music and the type of syncopation, a syncopated rhythm can make the music sound jaunty, jazzy, unsteady, surprising, uncertain, exciting, or just more interesting.
Other musical traditions tend to be more rhythmically complex than Western music, and much of the syncopation in modern American music is due to the influence of Non-Western traditions, particularly the African roots of the African-American tradition.
Syncopation is such an important aspect of much American music, in fact, that the type of syncopation used in a piece is one of the most important clues to the style and genre of the music. Ragtime, for example, would hardly be ragtime without the jaunty syncopations in the melody set against the steady unsyncopated bass. The "swing" rhythm in big-band jazz and the "back-beat" of many types of rock are also specific types of syncopation.
If you want practice hearing syncopations, listen to some ragtime or jazz. Tap your foot to find the beat, and then notice how often important musical "events" are happening "in between" your foot-taps. The tempo of a piece of music is its speed. There are two ways to specify a tempo. Metronome markings are absolute and specific. Other tempo markings are verbal descriptions which are more relative and subjective.
Both types of markings usually appear above the staff, at the beginning of the piece, and then at any spot where the tempo changes. Markings that ask the player to deviate slightly from the main tempo, such as ritardando may appear either above or below the staff.
Metronome markings are given in beats per minute. They can be estimated using a clock with a second hand, but the easiest way to find them is with a metronome , which is a tool that can give a beat-per-minute tempo as a clicking sound or a pulse of light. Figure 1. Metronomes often come with other tempo indications written on them, but this is misleading.
For example, a metronome may have allegro marked at beats per minute and andante marked at 80 beats per minute. Allegro should certainly be quite a bit faster than andante , but it may not be exactly beats per minute. A tempo marking that is a word or phrase gives you the composer's idea of how fast the music should feel.
How fast a piece of music feels depends on several different things, including the texture and complexity of the music, how often the beat gets divided into faster notes, and how fast the beats themselves are the metronome marking.
Also, the same tempo marking can mean quite different things to different composers; if a metronome marking is not available, the performer should use a knowledge of the music's style and genre, and musical common sense, to decide on the proper tempo.
When possible, listening to a professional play the piece can help with tempo decisions, but it is also reasonable for different performers to prefer slightly different tempos for the same piece. Andante - literally "walking", a medium slow tempo "on-DON-tay". These terms, along with a little more Italian, will help you decipher most tempo instructions.
Check to see how comfortable you are with Italian tempo markings by translating the following. Of course, tempo instructions don't have to be given in Italian. Much folk, popular, and modern music, gives instructions in English or in the composer's language. Tempo indications such as "Not too fast", "With energy", "Calmly", or "March tempo" give a good idea of how fast the music should feel. If the tempo of a piece of music suddenly changes into a completely different tempo, there will be a new tempo given, usually marked in the same way metronome tempo, Italian term, etc.
Gradual changes in the basic tempo are also common in music, though, and these have their own set of terms. These terms often appear below the staff, although writing them above the staff is also allowed. These terms can also appear with modifiers like molto or un poco. You may notice that there are quite a few terms for slowing down. Again, the use of these terms will vary from one composer to the next; unless beginning and ending tempo markings are included, the performer must simply use good musical judgement to decide how much to slow down in a particular ritardando or rallentando.
Tempo I - "tempo one" or "tempo primo" back to the original tempo this instruction usually appears above the staff. Repetition, either exact or with small or large variations, is one of the basic organizing principles of music.
Repeated notes , motifs , phrases , melodies , rhythms , chord progressions , and even entire repeated sections in the overall form , are all very crucial in helping the listener make sense of the music. So good music is surprisingly repetitive!
So, in order to save time, ink, and page turns, common notation has many ways to show that a part of the music should be repeated exactly. If the repeated part is very small - only one or two measures, for example - the repeat sign will probably look something like those in Figure 1. If you have very many such repeated measures in a row, you may want to number them in pencil to help you keep track of where you are in the music. For repeated sections of medium length - usually four to thirty-two measures - repeat dots with or without endings are the most common markings.
Dots to the right of a double bar line begin the repeated section; dots to the left of a double bar line end it. If there are no beginning repeat dots, you should go all the way back to the beginning of the music and repeat from there. It is very common for longer repeated sections of music to be repeated exactly until the last few measures. When this happens, the repeat dots will be put in an ending.
The bracket over the music shows you which measures to play each time you arrive at that point in the music. For example, the second time you reach a set of endings, you will skip the music in all the other endings; play only the measures in the second ending, and then do whatever the second ending directs you to do repeat, go on, skip to somewhere else, etc.
In this example there is 1 Eighth note one beam touching the stem joined to 2 Sixteenth notes 2 beams touching the stem. This is a note grouping that often confuses people, but it needn't! It is simply 1 Sixteenth note 2 beams on the stem joined to an Eighth note 1 beam on the stem joined to another Sixteenth note 2 beams on the stem! You may also have noticed that the three grouping examples above all add up to 1 Quarter note! This is the point at which it becomes more fun to learn the UK music note terminology!
The thirty-second note has 3 flags and may also be beamed together in the same way as the Eighth and Sixteenth notes. As a young music student I never tired of the name hemidemisemiquaver, and for this, if nothing else, I am glad I learned the UK version of the note names rather than the US version. Hemidemisemiquaver just sounds so much more fun than Sixty-fourth note! The Sixty-fourth note has 4 flags and is the shortest note in general notational use. It may also be beamed together.
The name hemidemisemiquaver actually makes sense if you look at it. So a hemidemisemiquaver is half of a half of a half of a quaver eighth note Click here for more information. Privacy Policy Disclaimer. Don't forget to have a look at the Essential Music Practice website. More progress in less time through effective, efficient practice technique. Powered by Solo Build It! Music Note Values Each music note written on the stave has a duration length as well as pitch. The Rhythm Tree In order to fully understand note lengths become familiar with the rhythm tree.
Double Whole Note Breve. Have a look at this table…. You can see that the quarter note crotchet has a filled notehead, a stem, but no tail.
If you un-fill the notehead and remove the stem the note length gets longer. If you add more tails to the stem, the note gets progressively shorter. Many of my students get confused over beamed notes — the good news is that they are actually very simple. If you put 2 eighth notes quavers next to each other, instead of writing 2 separate notes with 2 tails you join the tails together to make a beam.
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