Note values and rests
A note tells you not only which pitch but also how long. A semibreve equals two minims, four crotchets or eight quavers, and every note has a rest of the same length.
Why
How does a musician who has never heard a song know how long to hold each note?
On paper a note looks different each time: hollow or black, with or without a little flag, sometimes with a dot after it. That is not decoration.
Each shape is an agreement about how long the note lasts, measured in beats. That is how twenty musicians in an orchestra play notes of exactly the same length.
See it and hear it
The note tree: one semibreve splits into two minims, four crotchets and eight quavers. Switch on the rests and play a row against a steady beat.
Description of the picture
Four rows, one below the other: at the top one semibreve of 4 beats, then two minims of 2 beats, four crotchets of 1 beat and eight quavers of half a beat. Every row lasts the same time. Next to the notes are the rests of the same length.
Get it
We measure in beats, usually crotchets. A crotchet (in American English a quarter note) is a black head with a stem and lasts 1 beat. A minim (half note) is a hollow head with a stem: 2 beats. A semibreve (whole note) is a hollow head without a stem: 4 beats. A quaver (eighth note) is a black head with a little flag: half a beat. Two quavers are often joined with a beam.
A dot after a note makes it half as long again. A dotted minim lasts 2+
Silence is music too. A rest is a silence with a fixed length. Every note has its own rest: the semibreve rest hangs below a line, the minim rest sits on a line, the crotchet rest is a zigzag, and the quaver rest looks like a 7 with a little ball.
Semibreve 4 beats, minim 2, crotchet 1, quaver 1/2. A dot adds half again. A rest lasts as long as the note with the same name.
Worked example
How many beats do these last together: a minim, a crotchet rest and two quavers?
Minim 2, crotchet rest 1, two quavers together 1.
2+
1+ 1/2+ 1/2= 4 - Answer
4 beats altogether.
Do it
Choose a level. You get a new exercise every time, checked straight away.
Pitfalls
Wrong: A rest does not count, nothing happens there anyway.
The pulse keeps going during a rest. If you skip the rest, you come in too early with the next note.
Right: Count a rest just like a note: a crotchet rest is one beat of silence.
Wrong: The semibreve rest and the minim rest are the same little block.
They look alike, but the semibreve rest hangs below the fourth line and the minim rest sits on the middle line.
Right: Does the block hang (heavy, semibreve rest) or sit (minim rest)? That is how you remember it.
Wrong: A dot after a note always adds 1 beat.
The dot adds half of the note itself, so it depends on how long the note is.
Right: Dotted minim: 2+
1= 3. Dotted crotchet: 1+ 1/2= 1.5.
In real life
- In a rap track you often hear quavers and semiquavers: lots of syllables on one beat, while the beat rolls on calmly.
- In a Christmas carol or school song you know, the last note often lasts a long time: frequently a minim or a semibreve.
- In your town's brass band or wind band, the players watch the rests so they come back in at exactly the right moment.
History
In the Middle Ages monks wrote notes with square and diamond-shaped heads. Only centuries later did notes get the round heads you read today.
At the table
Clap a row together: crotchet, crotchet, minim. Then clap the same row, but turn the minim into a minim rest. What changes?
A question to talk about together, for parents and children. There is no wrong answer.