Basic Music Theory #3
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Email Carrie: carrie@archenemys.comThis is a crash course on the note values in 4/4 time.
Often you will hear: "This will be in 4/4 time. Quarter note gets the beat and there will be four beats per measure." Now your probably wondering what a quarter note is. A quarter means there are four parts to a whole. Hence, in this case, 4 quarter notes per measure.
Now if you clap your hands four times, ( i.e. one per second... say: 1 Mississippi, 2 Mississippi,
3 Mississippi, 4 mississippi. That's one measure in this example.) Now lets go down the list. First when you say a note you will say or sing "Bong." (Like a doorbell.) A whole note on paper does not have a stem attached to it. It is just a large "note head." A whole note looks like it has zebra strips. Two black strips on the edge inside the note head and a white strip in the middle. You would signify a whole note by singing or stretching out the word "bong," for the duration of your four claps. The whole note is worth four quarter notes. ( Remember 4 quarter notes equal a whole note's value.) A whole note rest looks like it hangs from a line on a music
staff. An easy way to remember is a whole note looks like a hole in the ground. Same rule applies to a whole note means the whole note or whole rest will take up the whole measure. So if you see a whole rest the entire measure is a rest.
A Half rest does look similar to a whole rest, because they both look like small boxes. There are two halves to a whole. You can say two words to remind you of the difference between a whole note. When you see a note sitting on top of a staff line, you can say "top hat." A whole note looks like a hole in the ground and a half note looks like a little top hat. A half note has a stem with the note head looking like a whole note. A half note has the value of 2 quarter notes. That means in this exercise you will say "bong" twice in a measure. So you would clap your hands the same time you say "bong." Then clap your hands, but elongate the "bong" . So instead of saying "bong" just during the first clap, it will be said or sung, during the duration of two hand claps. If singing "bong," hold out the tonality for the equivalent of 2 quarter notes.
When you get to the 3rd clap, start out with the second "bong." Hold the tonality over to the next clap.
Now we are going to take a side trip to triplets. These are a little tricky. Say triplet in three parts: "Trip-l-et." That's exactly what you will say every time you clap your hands. If you can related the words to where the notes will actually be you will see one group of triplets played on every hand clap. They have a black note head with a stem and a bar going across the top connecting the three in the group. In fact above the bar will be a number 3 to signify they are indeed triplets.
Next is the quarter notes. A quarter note is all black. They have stems. If it is not attached to another quarter note it will have a single flag on it. If it is attached to other quarter notes it will have a single bar across to connect the notes. Every time you clap your hands instead of singing "bong," you will say "bop." So say four "bops," on top of every hand clap in the measure.
A quarter note rest looks like a large handwriting E with the top blowing up in the wind.
The next in line is the 8th notes. There are 8 parts to a whole on this account. Hence, you will say two "bops" for every hand clap. Clap your hands and say "bop," and throw in another "bop" before you clap your hands again. ( Make sure the "bops," are said evenly.) On every clap do the same thing to generate 8 "bops" while clapping your hands 4 times. Since there are two 8th notes for every quarter note these notes look almost the same. The difference is the 8th note has either two flags if it is not followed by other 8th notes, or two bars to attach itself to the proceeding 8th note. An 8th note rest looks like a number 7 with a little ball at the end of the sevens top line. ( Draw a ball, put the roof of the seven on and then draw the post for the seven.)
Next is the 16th notes. There are sixteen 16th notes to equal the measure's value of a whole note. (Or in this case 16 "bops" for the time it takes to clap your hands four times in a measure.) There are four 16th notes for every hand clap. ( 4 x 4 = 16 ) In your head you may want to count each bop using this formula : 1e+a 2e+a 3e+a 4e+a. (Pronounced one ee and Ah, Two ee and Ah, Three ee and Ah, four ee and Ah.) Your hands will be clapped on the one, two, three and four. ( Or on the 1st, 5th, 9th and 13th "bop," you say.) A 16th rest looks like a double topped 7 with little balls at the end of both "tops," of the 7's. That's one beam going down.
As you can imagine for 32nd notes and 64th notes saying "bop," will be a little harder but it's the same concept. 32 beats per measure or 64 beats per measure.
This lesson does not include the definition of dotted notes or tied notes.