Beats, measures and rhythm notation

Music keeps a steady pulse: the beat. Beats are grouped into measures (bars), separated by bar lines. The time signature at the start says how. 4/4 means four beats in every measure, and a quarter note gets one beat.

Each note value is half as long as the one before it. In 4/4 a whole note fills the measure, a half note is two beats, a quarter note one beat, an eighth half a beat, a sixteenth a quarter of a beat.

A rest is silence of the same length, with its own symbol for each value.

Quarter notes are counted 1 2 3 4. Eighth notes split each beat in two: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Sixteenths split each beat in four: 1 e and a, 2 e and a, 3 e and a, 4 e and a.

Set a steady tempo and clap on every beat while counting out loud. Then clap a written rhythm while still counting the beat underneath it. The metronome and clap drills come later.