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lesson 5
In Lesson 4, you discovered that there are different notes for different durations. You
learned about the relationships between the notes. For example, you now know that two
half notes equals a whole, and four eighth notes equals two quarter notes. You also learned
that adding a dot to a note increases its duration by half of its value.
You also learned about the tie, which is a curved line, or slur that joins two notes together.
In the following example, the quarter note tied to the eighth note is the same as if the
quarter note had a dot after it, and the eighth note wasn’t there at all:
In the example above, we called the note above the number 3 an eighth
note. We know that an eighth note has a sloping flag, not a straight one.
We’ll explain more about that in this lesson.
note flags
Adding a flag to a note makes the note duration half as long. Take a quarter note that lasts
for one beat:
Add a flag to it, and it lasts for half of a beat:
What is this note? That’s right, an eighth note. Can we add a flag to an eighth note? Sure.
It looks like this:
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Gary Ewer's EASY MUSIC THEORY – LESSON 5
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This is called a sixteenth note. It takes two sixteenth notes to equal one eighth note.
Recalling the comparison chart from Lesson 4, imagine a row of sixteen sixteenth notes
under the eighths. This is shown in the video for Lesson 5, too. According to the chart,
it takes two sixteenth notes to equal one eighth note. It takes four sixteenth notes to equal
one quarter note. How many for a half note? Eight. How many for a whole note? Sixteen!
Here’s a mini review
of all the notes you
now know.
Whole
Half
Quarter
Eighth
Sixteenth
Like to guess what a note with three flags would be called? Yes, a thirty-second note. Four
flags? A sixty-fourth.
note beams
Notice how a row of flagged notes can tend to look a little cluttered? And it’s sometimes
hard to tell at a glance just how many there are, too.
Often, when flagged notes of the same duration are placed side by side, it’s easier to read
them if you turn the flags into beams. So, instead of this...
...just remove the flags and replace them with beams, like this:
is musically the same as
Gary Ewer's EASY MUSIC THEORY – LESSON 5
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Same thing for sixteenths:
is musically the same as
Why use beams instead of flags? It’s tidier, and easier for the
performer to read.
note stem direction
Sometimes note stems point up, and sometimes they point down. Look at this example:
How are the note stem directions decided? Simple. A note below the middle line points its
stem up. A note above the middle line points its stem down. For notes on the middle line,
take your choice.
Did you know...
Leopold Mozart (Wolfgang’s father) was the first
composer to use a double dot. As you know, the dot
adds half of the value of the note to which it is
attached to the length of a note. The second dot
adds half the value of the first dot! Do in 4/4 time,
a quarter note with two dots means: 1 + ½ + ¼.
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rests
If notes were all there were to music, the sound would never stop. One note would lead to
another, then another, then another. What if we want a silence in a piece of music? That
silence is represented by a rest. For every note that produces sound, we have a
corresponding rest that produces silence.
Just as a note represents a certain duration in sound, a rest represents a certain duration in
silence. We use a note for sound, and we use a rest for silence.
Just as we have a whole note that gets four beats of sound, we have whole rests that get
four beats of silence. A whole rest looks like a small rectangle that hangs from the fourth
line of the staff, like this:
A half rest gets two beats, like the half note. A half rest is a small rectangle that sits on the
third line, like this:
A quarter rest gets one beat, just like the quarter note. To draw a quarter rest, start with a
sloping diagonal line from the fourth to the third line, then draw a small semicircle around
the third line, and finish with a larger circle beneath it. Here’s what a printed quarter rest
looks like:
You may find it a bit difficult copying that one, so here’s what a hand drawn one looks like:
There are variations on how a hand drawn quarter rest looks like, but the one shown will do
nicely.
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glossary
Allegretto: Quickly, but not as quickly as allegro.
Rubato: “Robbed time”; to play with a very free tempo.
Pesante: Heavy, each note with length and emphasis.
Sordino: Mute.
•Senza:
miscellaneous
terms:
“Without”, as in “senza sordino” (without mute).
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summary
In this lesson, we learned that we can add a flag to an eighth note to produce a sixteenth
note, and that each time we add a flag to a note, we cut its value in half. Here are the notes
we’ve learned about:
Whole
Half
Quarter
Eighth
Sixteenth
We also learned that notes that are beamed together are the same as notes with flags.
is musically the same as
We learned that notes above the bottom line point their stems upward, and notes below the
bottom line point their stems downward. Notes on the middle line of a staff can point either
way.
And we learned that we can use rests in music to represent silence. For each note value
there is a corresponding rest of the same value.
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s FAQ
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1. Are there more notes in addition to whole, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth
notes?
Yes. There are notes that last longer than a whole note, and there are notes that last shorter
than a sixteenth. For example, a thirty-second note is shorter than a sixteenth.
2. Can notes of different duration be beamed together?
Yes. For example, it is possible to beam an eighth note to a pair of sixteenths. It looks like
this:
Musicians find it easier to read than:
3. Can we use dotted rests?
Yes, there are dotted rests, and of course the way to calculate the length of the rest is the
same as for notes. There are some rules that editors usually employ regarding when dotted
rests are used, and when they aren’t. And dotted rests are used more commonly today than,
say, fifty years ago.
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