GressusRhythm · Reference

Rhythm and Note Lengths

Fig. 1 — THE METRONOME

Choose the beats that sound and how each one is divided, then play. Full screen adds its practice settings: swing, gap training and tempo automation.

Pitch tells you which note. Rhythm tells you when, and for how long. It is the half of notation players most often read by feel rather than by rule — and the half that falls apart first when the music gets difficult.

Part 1 is what the symbols mean, starting from the pulse underneath them. Part 2 is the pulse itself, heard: its tempo, how it is grouped and divided, and how it swings. Every control it names is on the metronome on this page. A metronome marks where beats and notes begin, never how long a note lasts; that length is yours to count.

This page is how rhythm is written. How a band plays it — what each part is for, how a song is put together — is on the Groovebox page.

On these pages

The pulse, bars and the strong beat	03
Note values, dots, ties, beams and rests	05
Counting aloud	11
Time signatures, syncopation, and why 6/8 is not 3/4	13
Subdivision, tuplets and counting in threes	17
Tempo, metre and swing	21
Setting up and practising	25
Common questions	27

Rhythm and Note Lengths01

GressusThe tool

Fig. 1 — THE METRONOME

Full screen

Choose the beats that sound and how each one is divided, then play. Full screen adds its practice settings: swing, gap training and tempo automation.

The metronome02

GressusThe pulse

Part one

Reading rhythm

Before the symbols: the pulse

Listen to almost any piece of music and you will find yourself tapping a foot. That steady tap is the pulse: an even series of moments that runs underneath the music from start to finish, whether or not a note sounds on each one. Each tap is a beat.

The pulse is not something the music contains, like a note. It is something the music implies and every player agrees to keep. A band stays together because each player is counting the same pulse. A rest is still timed against it, and a long note is held against it. Everything else on these pages is measured against it.

Fig. 2 — THE PULSE

The notes above sometimes land on a beat and sometimes between two. The beats underneath do not move.

How fast the pulse runs is the tempo, counted in beats per minute. At 60 BPM a beat falls every second; at 120, twice a second.

Try it

Put on any recording with drums. Tap the pulse with your foot and count it aloud — 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 — keeping the count going when the music is quiet. If your count drifts from the music, you were following the notes rather than the pulse.

Silence does not stop it either. A band can drop out for a bar, or the drummer and the bass can stop while the rest play on, and everyone comes back in on the same beat, because nobody stopped counting. How bands use those gaps is on the Groovebox page.

The pulse is the one thing in music that never stops for a rest, even one written on the page.

The pulse03

GressusBars

Bars: beats in groups

Beats are not all equal. Count the pulse of a march and you will feel every second beat lean slightly harder than the one after it: ONE two ONE two. In a waltz it is every third: ONE two three ONE two three. Music groups its beats, and the first of each group — the downbeat — carries the weight.

Each group is a bar / measure, two names for one thing. On the page a bar line closes it off, a double bar line marks the end of a section, and a thick-and-thin double bar ends the piece. The number of beats in each bar is the metre, and the time signature states it.

Table 1 · the strong beats

Beats in a bar	Strength	Count
Two	strong – weak	1 2
Three	strong – weak – weak	1 2 3
Four	strong – weak – medium – weak	1 2 3 4

In four, beat three is a lighter second downbeat: a four-beat bar behaves like two halves.

Fig. 3 — TWO WAYS TO BAR

in threes

in fours

The same twelve beats, barred in threes and in fours. Only the bar lines and the accented first beats move.

The bar that starts early. Not every piece starts on a downbeat. Happy Birthday starts on “Happy”, the last beat of a bar, before the first full bar. Those opening notes are an anacrusis (upbeat, or pickup), and the final bar of the piece is usually short by the same amount, so the two together make one whole bar. Count the missing beats silently and come in on the right one.

Try it

Count 1 2 3 aloud and clap only on 1. Then count 1 2 3 4 and clap on 1 and, more softly, on 3. You are clapping the shape of the bar. A bar line is not a pause; it marks where the strong beat falls.

Bars and the strong beat04

GressusNote values

Note values

A note’s shape tells you how long it lasts. Each value is worth exactly half the one above it, and every value has a matching rest — the same length, in silence.

Table 2 · the note ladder

British	American	Length
Semibreve	Whole note	4 beats
Minim	Half note	2 beats
Crotchet	Quarter note	1 beat
Quaver	Eighth note	½ beat
Semiquaver	Sixteenth note	¼ beat
Demisemiquaver	Thirty-second note	⅛ beat

Lengths assume gets the beat — the commonest case, but not a rule.

Note values05

GressusHalving

Fig. 4 — THE HALVING

one

two

four

The ladder is one relationship applied over and over. Nothing in it depends on tempo.

Two sets of names

Every note length has two names in everyday use, and this book gives both, every time. One set describes the arithmetic: a crotchet / quarter note is a quarter of a semibreve / whole note. The other is older and comes from the symbols’ history: crotchet, from the French crochet, a hook. Both are used wherever music is taught in English, often in the same sentence. Neither is more correct. The symbol is the same either way, which is why the figures here show the symbol first.

A note value is a proportion, not a duration. Change the tempo and every value changes with it.

Above and below the ladder

The ladder stops at neither end. Above the semibreve / whole note sits the breve / double whole note, worth two of them — rare since the Baroque, but still written. Below the demisemiquaver / thirty-second note the halving simply continues: the hemidemisemiquaver / sixty-fourth note, and shorter still, though past that point the names get used more often as a joke than in earnest.

Six values cover essentially all music a player will meet. The two ends are worth knowing exist, and not worth memorising.

Note values06

GressusDots

The dot

A dot after a note adds half of that note’s value again.

Fig. 5 — THE DOT

three beats

two

and one

equals plus ; equals plus , a beat and a half.

Fig. 6 — THE DOTTED NOTE

a beat and a half

one

and a half

— a beat and a half, and the dotted value a player is most likely to meet.

A second dot adds half of the first dot’s value, so a double-dotted lasts plus plus — and double dots are uncommon, mostly Classical and Romantic.

Fig. 7 — A DOTTED RHYTHM

long – shortone beat

two even notesthe same beat

The dotted rhythm — long-short, filling one beat. It is the figure dots exist for, and the one most often flattened towards a triplet in performance.

That flattening is worth naming, because it is the commonest rhythmic error there is: played as anything looser becomes a triplet, and a march starts to swing. Split the beat in four on the grid and the short note either lands on the fourth division or it does not.

A dot is arithmetic, not a suggestion. Where a style wants it looser, the style says so — the notation never does.

Dots and ties07

GressusTies

The tie

A tie joins two notes of the same pitch into one longer sound. The second note is not played; its value is added to the first.

Fig. 8 — TIE AGAINST DOT

tiedtwo notes, one sound

dottedone note, longer

Both make a longer sound, and they are not interchangeable.

A dot changes one note’s value. A tie joins two notated notes into one sounded note — which is why a tie can cross a bar line and a dot never does.

Ties also express lengths no dotted value can — five held as one, say.

A tie is not a slur

They are drawn the same way, and they are the commonest confusion on this page. The difference is the pitch: a tie joins two notes of the SAME pitch into one sound; a slur joins notes of DIFFERENT pitches and asks for them to be played smoothly.

So a curve between two identical notes is a tie and changes the rhythm. The same curve over a rising line is a slur and changes nothing about the rhythm at all — it is an instruction about articulation, and on a bowed or wind instrument, about how the phrase is physically produced.

Same curve. Same pitch means a tie; different pitches mean a slur.

Across the bar line

This is the job no dot can do. A bar line is not allowed to interrupt a sound, but a note may not be written across one either — so the note is written twice, once on each side, and tied. What you read as two notes you play as one, held through the bar line.

It is also how syncopation is most often notated: tie into a strong beat and the stress that beat expects never arrives.

Dots and ties08

GressusBeams

Beams

and shorter notes may carry individual flags, or be joined with beams. Beaming changes nothing about how long the notes last. It is a reading aid — and what it aids is seeing the beat.

Fig. 9 — BEAMING

flagged — four notes

beamed in twos — two beats, visible

The same four notes. Beamed in twos, one pair per beat, the pulse is legible before you have read a single value.

Fig. 10 — BEAM GROUPS

right — one group per beat

right — one group per half bar

wrong — the beam hides beat 3

Beams follow the beat. In 4/4 two beats may share a beam, as long as both are in the same half of the bar; a beam across the middle hides beat 3, the bar’s second downbeat.

This is why the same rhythm can look quite different in two editions, and why badly beamed music is genuinely harder to read.

Beams09

GressusRests

Rests

Rests are notated silence, with the same values as notes and a symbol for each.

Fig. 11 — THE REST LADDER

Each rest above the note it stands for. The semibreve / whole-note rest hangs below a line; the minim / half-note rest sits on one — the one pair readers reliably confuse.

They are not gaps in the music. A rest is as deliberate as a note and timed as precisely. Beginners treat them as permission to relax, which is how rhythms drift: the count continues whether or not anything is sounding.

Rests follow the beaming rule too: they are written so the halves of the bar stay visible. In 4/4 a minim / half-note rest is fine on beats 1⁠–⁠2 or 3⁠–⁠4, but two beats of silence across the middle of the bar are written as two crotchet / quarter-note rests, on beats 2 and 3, so beat 3 can still be seen.

A whole bar of silence takes the semibreve / whole-note rest in any metre — even where that note would be the wrong length for the bar.

Rests10

GressusCounting

Counting aloud

Reading rhythm is counting. A player who counts aloud cannot lose the beat without hearing it go, which is why every teacher asks for it and why every player who skips it eventually comes back to it.

The rule. Count the beats, and divide each beat into syllables, one for every place a note could start. Keep the whole count running. Say each syllable louder when a note starts on it, and hold the sound when the note is long. At first, say every syllable aloud. Later the count goes quiet and only the starting syllables are spoken.

The syllables. Each beat is its number; halve it with &; halve again with e and a.

Table 3 · one beat, counted

In one beat	Say
	1
	1 &
	1 e & a

So a bar of 4/4 is counted:

split in two1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &split in four1 e & a 2 e & a 3 e & a 4 e & a

The & is always exactly halfway between two beats, so it is where every off-beat lives. That is what a band means by the and of 2.

Long notes keep the count going. on beat 1 is 1 (2), with the note held through the bracket. A semibreve / whole note is 1 (2 3 4).

Rests are counted exactly like notes but silent. Whisper the count, or mouth it, and do not stop: 1 2 (3) 4. The count is what times the next entry.

Counting aloud11

GressusCounting

Dots and ties, counted

Dots and ties are where counting earns its keep.

Table 4 · long and short, counted

Rhythm	Say	Listen for
	1 (2) &	the short note lands on the & of 2, not on 2
	1 (e &) a	the short note is on a , the last quarter of the beat
	4 & \| (1)	starts on the & of 4, held through the next downbeat

The second row is the dotted rhythm on the dots spread. Counting is how you make sure the short note lands on a and not on a triplet’s last third.

Fig. 12 — ONE BAR, COUNTED

One bar, counted. Bold syllables are spoken as a note starts; bracketed ones are held or silent, and still counted.

Try it

Clap the bar above while counting every syllable aloud. Then count it in your head and clap it again. If it changes shape the second time, the first was right and the counting has not yet moved inside.

There are other systems, and they work. Kodály’s ta and ti-ti, or simply speaking the rhythm on one syllable, are common in classrooms. The one used here is the most widely understood between players, and it carries straight across to how bands talk about where a note sits.

If you can count it, you can play it. If you cannot count it, slow down until you can.

Counting aloud12

GressusTime signatures

Time signatures

The lower number says which note value gets the beat; the upper says how many are in a bar. The lower number is how many of that note fill one semibreve / whole note:

Table 5 · the lower number

Lower number	The beat	Fill a
2	minim / half note	2
4	crotchet / quarter note	4
8	quaver / eighth note	8

Fig. 13 — FOUR METRES

four beats of

three beats of

two beats of

Cut common time (2/2) holds the same notes as 4/4 but counts them in two beats instead of four beats. Each beat now covers twice as much music, so at the same metronome number the music moves twice as fast.

Two metres carry a symbol instead of numbers, and they are the two most likely to stop a reader, because neither looks like a time signature at all.

Fig. 14 — THE TWO SYMBOLS

common time = 4/4

cut common = 2/2

Neither is an abbreviation of the word “common”. Both descend from mediaeval mensural notation, where a broken circle meant imperfect time — and the stroke through it halves the count.

Time signatures13

GressusBackbeat and syncopation

Strong beats, and the backbeat

The metre supplies a hierarchy of strength. In 4/4, beat 1 is strongest, beat 3 next, beats 2 and 4 weaker.

The backbeat turns that round: the stress moves to beats 2 and 4, usually on the snare drum. Every note is still on the beat, so nothing is harder to count; only the weight has moved. It came into popular music through rhythm and blues, and it is the hallmark of rock and roll.

Fig. 15 — THE BACKBEAT

the metre: strong on 1 and 3

the backbeat: stress on 2 and 4

The same four , stressed two ways. The notes do not move; only the accents do.

Syncopation

Syncopation puts a note where the beat is not: it starts on an &, between two beats, and is often held over the next beat, so that beat arrives with nothing new on it.

Counting is how syncopation becomes readable. Count 1 & 2 & 3 4: play on 1, play again on its &, hold that note through 2, and play again on the & of 2. Beat 2 arrives with nothing new on it. The count says where the beat is, and the playing says where it is not.

Fig. 16 — SYNCOPATION BY TIE

The note begins on the & of 1 and holds through beat 2, so beat 2 arrives with nothing to mark it. A band calls this a push — see the Groovebox page.

A syncopated rhythm you cannot count is one you are guessing.

Backbeat and syncopation14

GressusSimple and compound

Simple and compound time

In simple time each beat divides into two. 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4 are simple.

In compound time each beat divides into three. 6/8, 9/8 and 12/8 are compound: the beat is , a dotted note.

Fig. 17 — 6/8

Six in the bar — but two beats, not six.

If the top number is 6, 9 or 12, divide by three to get the number of beats.

Why 6/8 is not 3/415

GressusThe same six notes

Fig. 18 — 3/4

The same six , grouped in twos.

Nothing distinguishes these two bars except where the stresses fall — and the beaming, which is how the engraver tells you.

Identical note content; entirely different music. This is the pair to hear rather than read: set the tool to each in turn and the difference is immediate.

Grouping is not a detail of the notation. It is the metre.

Why 6/8 is not 3/416

GressusSubdivision

Subdivision

Subdivision means counting the notes between the beats. It is the single most useful rhythmic skill and the one most players skip.

Fig. 19 — DIVIDING THE BEAT

the beat

split in two

split in three

split in four

One beat, divided four ways — the four densities the tool offers.

Most rhythm problems are not problems of finding the beat. They are problems of what happens between beats, and a pulse alone reveals none of them.

Subdivision17

GressusTuplets

Tuplets

A tuplet fits a number of notes into the time normally occupied by a different number. The commonest is the triplet — three in the space of two.

Fig. 20 — THE TRIPLET

three notesin the space of two

two notesone beat

Both groups last exactly one beat. The bracket and its numeral are the only thing telling you so.

A duplet fits two where three belong; quintuplets and septuplets fit five or seven into the space of four.

A tuplet cannot be counted with the subdivision around it. You feel a different division briefly, and return.

Tuplets18

GressusCounting in threes

Counting in threes

In 6/8 each beat is a and divides into three , counted 1 & a. A bar is two beats: 1 & a 2 & a.

Fig. 21 — ONE BAR OF 6/8, COUNTED

Bold syllables are played; the bracketed one is held.

Hold the 1 through the & and the beat goes long–short, 1 (&) a: the lilt of a jig, and the feel swing borrows (see Swing, as a number).

Why not count to six?

Counting 6/8 as 1 2 3 4 5 6 turns it into six beats, and six beats is a different metre. Spoken that way, it pulls towards 3/4, which is the exact confusion of the 6/8 spread. At very slow tempos players do sometimes count six, but the bar still has two beats, and the count should still lean on 1 and 4.

Counting in threes19

GressusTriplets and swing

Triplets use the same syllables

A triplet is three notes in the time of two, so a beat of simple time borrows compound time’s division for a moment. It is counted the same way: 1 & a. This is deliberate. A triplet in 4/4 and a beat of 6/8 sound alike, and counting them alike lets you hear that. (Some teachers say 1-trip-let, which is also fine.)

The switch is the hard part. 1 & 2 & 3 & a 4 & moves between two and three on a single beat, and the beat itself must not move.

Fig. 22 — TWO AND THREE

Two and three. A bar of 4/4 with a triplet on beat 3, then a bar of 6/8, each counted beneath.

Try it

Count 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & steadily, then on beat 3 switch to 3 & a and back to 4 &. Keep a foot on the beat throughout. If the foot stumbles on 3, the triplet borrowed time it was not entitled to.

Swing is counted in threes. In swing, two written are played as the first and last parts of a triplet: 1 (&) a 2 (&) a. Most scores mark swing with a small sign at the top, two equal to under a triplet bracket, and the count is that sign spoken aloud. How strongly to swing is a matter of tempo and style (see Swing, as a number).

Counting in threes20

GressusTempo

Part two

Hearing it

Part 1 is what the symbols mean. This part is the pulse they sit on, and everything named below is a control on the metronome on this page.

Tempo

Beats per minute counts the pulse, not the notes. What counts as a beat is decided by the time signature, so 90 BPM in 4/4 and 90 BPM in 6/8 are two quite different speeds.

A metronome set to 120 is neither fast nor slow until you know what note value each click represents.

If you know the speed but not the number, tap it. Tap the pulse four or more times and the number follows — the honest way to find the tempo of a recording.

Tempo21

GressusTempo markings

The words scores use instead of numbers

Scores rarely give a number. They give an Italian word, and the number is implied — loosely. A Baroque allegro and a Romantic allegro are not the same speed.

Table 6 · tempo markings

Term	Meaning	BPM
Largo	broadly	40–60
Adagio	slowly, at ease	66–76
Andante	at a walking pace	76–108
Moderato	at a moderate speed	108–120
Allegro	fast and bright	120–156
Vivace	lively	156–176
Presto	very fast	168–200

The ranges overlap because the words were never defined by number. These seven cover most of the music you will meet, and the metronome on this page names the word for whatever tempo you set.

Tempo22

GressusGrouping

How a bar is grouped

A time signature says how much is in a bar — and how that bar is grouped. Some metres cannot be grouped evenly at all, and those are the interesting ones.

Fig. 23 — ADDITIVE METRES

3 + 2

2 + 2 + 3

5/4 divides only as 3+2 or 2+3; 7/8 is most often 2+2+3. These are additive metres — built by adding unequal groups rather than multiplying equal ones.

Additive metres are sometimes called irregular. They are not compound time, despite the name sounding right: compound means each beat divides into three, as in 6/8.

A 5/4 counted 3+2 and a 5/4 counted 2+3 differ in the same way 6/8 differs from 3/4.

These are not exotic. Additive metres are ordinary in Balkan and Greek traditional music, common in progressive rock, and run throughout twentieth-century concert music. What makes them awkward on the page is that the time signature alone does not tell you the grouping — the beaming does, and a score that beams them carelessly is close to unreadable.

Metre and swing23

GressusSwing

Swing, as a number

In swing feel, pairs of are played unevenly — the first longer than the second. The ratio is not fixed, which is why the sign at the top of a score can say “swing” but cannot say how much.

Fig. 24 — THE SWING RATIO

50Straighttwo equal halves

66.7Triplettwo thirds, one third

75Hard shufflethree quarters, one quarter

The share of the beat taken by the first of the pair. The tool’s dial runs this whole range, with marks at 50, 54, 58, 62, 66 and 71.

Swing moves with tempo, and always the same way: the faster the music, the straighter the swing. A ratio that sits comfortably at 90 BPM sounds overdone at 200, and one chosen at 200 sounds stiff at 90.

Metre and swing24

GressusPractising

Setting up the click

Everything that shapes the click is on the metronome’s Beat & subdivision card.

The beat columns

One column per beat of the metre. Tap a column to set how loudly that beat clicks, from silent up to accented.

Dividing the beat

The row beneath divides every beat into one, two, three or four clicks.

Beat and Sub-beat

Each has its own sound and level. Matched gives the sub-beat the beat’s sound.

Fewer clicks make you do more of the work. Silence beats 2 and 4 and a bar of 4/4 clicks twice rather than four times. With half the reference points, your own time carries twice as much of the work — which is the point of the exercise.

Practising25

GressusPractising

Practising with a metronome

A metronome’s value is diagnostic. It does not keep time for you; it reveals where your own time drifts.

Practise below tempo, and increment

Find the speed you can play it correctly three times running, then raise it. Fail twice, go back down.

Subdivide when you rush

Rushing is usually long notes clipped, not short notes hurried. Set the click to the subdivision and the clipped note becomes obvious.

Then take it away

Gap training drops everything for whole bars — regularly, or at random, which is harder because you cannot prepare for it.

Tempo automation moves the tempo for you: a start, a target, a step size, and how many times round the loop to wait between steps. A target below the start makes it descend, which is how you find the speed a passage actually falls apart at.

It can move the number, but it cannot hear whether you played the last three attempts correctly. The three-in-a-row rule stays yours to keep.

What it is all for

The aim is not to play well with a metronome. It is to play well without one — and a click that is never switched off has stopped being a diagnostic and become a crutch. The passage is not learned until it holds on its own.

Use it to find the fault, use it to build the speed, and take it away to find out whether either worked.

Away from the instrument

A rhythm you cannot clap is a rhythm you cannot play. Put the instrument down, count the bar aloud as on the counting spreads, and clap the figure against your own counting — if it falls apart there, the problem was never in your hands.

Practising26

GressusQuestions

Common questions

Is a crotchet / quarter note always one beat?

No. The time signature decides. In 4/4 gets the beat; in 6/8 does, and a plain is two thirds of a beat.

Why do British and American note names differ?

The American names describe how long each note is relative to a semibreve / whole note. The British names are inherited from older European practice. Both are correct.

What is the difference between 6/8 and 3/4 if both hold six of the same note?

Where the stress falls. 6/8 is two beats of three; 3/4 is three beats of two.

Common questions27

GressusQuestions

Why does my swing setting sound wrong when I change tempo?

Because swing is tempo-dependent: faster music swings straighter. There is no correct number — only a correct number for this tempo, in this style.

Should I always practise with a metronome?

No. Use it to diagnose and to build, and remove it to test. Much rubato-heavy Romantic repertoire actively resists it.

Fig. 25 — THE METRONOME, AGAIN

Full screen

Common questions28

TOM · Teacher Of Music

The old textbook, brought to life.

Every diagram here is a tool you actually use — free, and built to practise with.

Practise free with Gressus