RHYTHM READING

This set of pages has some hints & exercises for better rhythm reading.

The little blue bug shows up when there is something for you to practice (he's bugging you to practice...)

Table of Contents



BUT, WHY????

Being able to read rhythms is one of the most important skills in becoming a good musician. Not to say that there aren't fine musicians who don't read well (jazz in particular is more of an aural art - you play what you hear), but if you want to become independent and not have to wait to have someone "show you how it goes," rhythm reading is the ticket.

So how to begin to get better at deciphering those black specks on the page...

First of all, you must have a physical understanding of the beat; you must feel the beat in your body. If you can't feel the beat, you can't play rhythmically. To get better at feeling the beat, dance, or tap your foot to the music, or clap, or nod your head. Do something physical. Try to get to where you can feel where beat one is - where is the emphasis in the music.

Get someone to test you & help you find that beat one.



SETTING UP THE BEAT

When you are working on rhythms, always have the physical sense of the beat in your body - you can tap your toe (on the beat, not to the rhythm!), set up the beat in your lap, nod your head, bounce your knee - but do something physical!! The research scientists tell us that we learn better when we involve more than one part of our body & mind -- the physical reinforces the intellectual.

I like to have students set up the beat in their laps - hands down on the thighs on the beat (numbers) and fingers touch in the air on the "and" of the beat -- (click here to see a diagram of setting up the beat)

down,
up,
down,
up
1
+
2
+
lap,
touch,
lap,
touch

I call this "setting up the beat" or "being your own metronome." Be sure to count out loud, too -- again, use as many parts of the body/mind as you can & you will learn more quickly (physical motion, intellectual & speaking). Don't clap when your fingers touch, just touch - the down should be the noisy one and the touch just a physical reminder of where the halfway point is.

Practice setting up the beat while listening to music - any kind of music will do: rock, classical, jazz, rap, folk, anything that has a beat!



THE NOTES -- what do they mean? (Math!)

The notes we use all relate to the whole note and create a mathematical pyramid - each line equals a whole note.

whole
half
half
quarter
 quarter
quarter
quarter
eighth
eighth
eighth
eighth
eighth
eighth
eighth
eighth
16th 16th
16th 16th
16th 16th
16th 16th
16th 16th
16th 16th
16th 16th
16th 16th

Notice the mathematical formula?? It makes sense, doesn't it? There are 2 half notes in a whole, 4 quarter notes in a whole, 8 eighth notes in a whole, 16 sixteenth notes in a whole, 32 thirty-second notes in a whole, 64 sixty-fourth notes in a whole! In notes, the pyramid looks like this:

OK - so two quarter notes take up the same amount of time as one half note, right?  =  Remember that bit of math in the next examples.

Often (but not always!) we define the quarter note as equaling a beat, ex: 4/4 or 3/4 or 5/4, so if there are two quarter notes in a half note, a half note equals two beats - simple math.

Sometimes we are in cut time - - and a half note equals the beat, so quarter notes now equal a half of a beat!

Sometimes we make the eighth note equal the beat, ex: 6/8 or 3/8 or 12/8. Now, remember that and do the math on the example below (eighth note gets the beat!)

 =      so       =   =     and       =    = 

Therefore, if the eighth note equals one beat, a half note equals four beats and a dotted half note equals 6 beats

Conclusion: how many beats a note gets changes depending on the time signature (quarter note equals one beat). The relationship between the notes stays the same (two quarters equals the same amount of time as one half). If you want to know more about all of this music theory, go to www.musictheory.net
MusicTheory.net is a great place to go for basic information and advanced information.


Vocabulary

Music has a rhythm vocabulary. Knowing a lot of the most frequently learned rhythm patterns makes reading music easier, just like knowing words makes reading the written word easier! Your goal should be to learn, at sight, as many of the basic patterns as possible. I call these rhythms our Dog & Cat rhythms. If someone flashed the word "DOG" and you only saw it for a millisecond, you would recognize it and be able to say, "Dog." You should be equally familiar with the following rhythms - you should only need to see them for an instant to know exactly how to play them.

SOME "DOG & CAT" RHYTHMS in 4/4

     

   

    

   

       

     

     

     

      


   

   

 

 

   

  

   

  

     

     

There are many more basic rhythms (and we haven't even put many rests yet), but you get the idea.

Look through the music you are playing and write down all of the rhythms that you see frequently. Can you do the counting? Can you say the counting while you set up the beat in your lap? Can you clap the rhythms & count out loud them while listening to music that is in the same time? Keep a notebook of common rhythms. Don't forget to included rhythms in other time signatures and rhythms with rests - they count, too!!



PRACTICE THE RHYTHMS

Now, go to the rhythm pages and see what you can do.



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