How Rhythm is Written
In the Intro to Theory lesson, we saw how the measure of a staff is worth a value set by the time signature and that, much like the way one can make a dollar out of a combination of half-dollars, quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies, one must fill in a measure with whole, half, quarter, eighth, and sixteenth notes and/or rests equal to the number of beats-per-measure. Much like the way the musical alphabet consists of only seven letters, the musical numbering system retains a fairly small amount of number as well. How nice! But there are a few additional techniques to consider that make counting more intuitive when playing music. Again, counting is a crucial skill to develop for both playing on your own and with others. The way a group stays together is by counting!
Counting
Perhaps the best way to understand how time signature and notation work together to give us the ability to write down rhythm is to hit the ground running and learn it all at once with some keen examples!
Let’s inspect Figure 1. In Figure 1, we see the treble clef, a 4/4-time signature, and a circle around the middle line of the staff. There are also numbers 1 through 4 floating above the staff. Well, the circle is called a whole note and has a value of 4 beats. Since the top number of the time signature is 4, meaning “4-beats-per-measure”, then that measure will only fit that note and, when we play it, we will count (pluck) “1-2-3-4” beats.
In Figure 2, we see the same clef and time signature, but with two circles each with a stem. These notes are called half notes and they have a value of 2 beats each. Therefore, as there are still 4 beats per measure, one measure can have 2 half notes and we count each note for two beats. One would play and count the bar in Figure 2 as (pluck) “1, 2”, (pluck) “3, 4”.
In Figure 3, we see the same staff, but with four filled in circles each with a stem. These are quarter notes, which are filled in to differentiate them from half notes, and they have a value of 1 beat each. So, we would play and count this measure as (pluck) “1”, (pluck) “2”, (pluck) “3”, (pluck) “4”.
Here’s where things get a little interesting. In Figure 4, we see eight filled in circles with stems in two sets of four attached by a line. These are called eighth notes and, to help differentiate them from quarter notes, they have a little flag at the bottom of their stem, which can also connect to up to 4 eighth notes in sequence as a beam to help musicians read the music faster. An individual eighth note can be thought of as half of a quarter note, so where a quarter note is equal to one beat, one eighth note is equal to half a beat. This is very important for counting because now we must introduce the concept of “and”. As you can see in Figure 4, some eighth notes have a number above it and others have a plus (+) symbol meaning “and”. Counting with “and” allows us to account for half a beat without adding more numbers. In fact, we can’t add anymore numbers because the time signature only allows us to have 4 beats! So, “and” is a real lifesaver as it allows us to play more notes in a measure without changing the time signature. We would play the measure in Figure 4 as (pluck) “1”, (pluck) “and”, (pluck) “2”, (pluck) “and”, (pluck) “3”, (pluck) “and”, (pluck) “4”, (pluck) “and”.
Another very interesting, very important, concept brought to us by the eighth notes are the downbeats and upbeats. While you do not count the ‘ups’ and ‘downs’, they are an important concept to grasp. When jamming with others, you may often hear someone shout, “…okay, on the downbeat!”, to start playing or someone may ask you to play on the upbeat; in these instances, you would count with beat number and “and” and know the beat number is the downbeat and the “and” is the upbeat. The arrows above the notes in Figure 5 help illustrate the concept.
To further emphasize the concept of “and” we can inspect how to count the next lower note value: the sixteenth note. A sixteenth note can be thought of as half an eighth note, so that one eighth note is split into two sixteenth notes; similarly, a quarter note can be split into four sixteenth notes. To distinguish the sixteenth note from the eighth note, one draws a similarly filled in circle with a stem but adds two flags at the end of the stem; one can also group together four sixteenth notes with a double beam. As with counting “and” for the eighth notes, we also add some words to say to count the beats within the beat for sixteenth notes. As shown in Figure 6, each set of four sixteenth notes have a number (the beat), an “-ee”, an “-an” (or “-and”), and an “-ah” above it. Thus, the measure in Figure 6 is played and counted as (pluck) “1”, (pluck) “ee”, (pluck) “an”, (pluck) “ah”, (pluck) “2”, (pluck) “ee”, (pluck) “an”, (pluck) “ah”, (pluck) “3”, (pluck) “ee”, (pluck) “an”, (pluck) “ah”, (pluck) “4”, (pluck) “ee”, (pluck) “an”, (pluck) “ah”. Saying it out loud (“oneieanna-twoieanna…”) can help grasp the rhythm.
Note Alterations and Other Time Signatures
Great! Now we are comfortable with different note values and how to count them in 4/4 time. I would like to introduce some more interesting notes you may encounter that will help you use your new counting skills while also broadening your understanding of time signatures.
In Figure 7, we see a half note and a quarter note and you may notice that, since a half and a quarter note equal 3 beats, that measure may be missing a beat! You would be right, except, if you notice, there is a small dot just to the right of the half note. That dot is used to give any note an additional beat equal to half of the note’s value. In this case, we see a dotted half note that has the original 2 beats of the half note plus 1 beat, which is half the value of a half note.
To help clarify this concept, if we inspect Figure 8, we see dotted quarter notes, which are equal to 1 beat and a half beat, or 1 beat and an eighth beat. One would play and count the measure in Figure 8 as (pluck) “1”, “and”, “2”, (pluck) “and”, (pluck) “3”, “and”, “4”, (pluck) “and”. Notice how counting helps us know when to pluck the string.
Another interesting way to split up a beat is with the use of triplets. One can think of triplets as dividing 1 beat into 3 equal parts, sort of in between eighth notes dividing 1 beat into 2 equal parts and sixteenth notes dividing 1 beat into 4 equal parts. Figure 9 shows four sets of triplets in 4/4 where each triplet is equal to one beat. The way one counts a triplet is by counting the beat number followed by an “and” and an “ah”. You may also find some counting a triplet by counting the beat number followed by a “trip” and a “let”. In either case, the same counting is performed. The measure in Figure 9 would be played and counted as (pluck) “1”, (pluck) “and”, (pluck) “ah”, (pluck) “2”, (pluck) “and”, (pluck) “ah”, (pluck) “3”, (pluck) “and”, (pluck) “ah”, (pluck) “4”, (pluck) “and”, (pluck) “ah”. Saying out loud, “oneanna, twoanna, threeanna, fouranna”.
As we have seen, musicians have developed many ways to divide up a 4/4-time signature to allow them to invent interesting rhythms, but sometimes a song cannot be written in 4/4 to really convey what the artist means. It is important to note that 4/4 is so widely used that it is called common time and can be denoted by a “C” in the time signature place. While it is less common to see a “C” than a “4/4”, a musician will commonly put a “C” with a line through it to indicate cut time, or a time signature of “2/4”. Notation for both can be seen in Figure 10.
A time signature of 2/4, also known as cut time, has 2 beats-per-measure, with the quarter note still getting the beat. It is like 4/4, except a measure can only have half the number of beats in it. For example, if we look at Figure 11, we can see one measure with a half note, which is counted for two beats and completes the measure. We can also see a measure with 2 quarter notes, which, at 1 beat each, fulfills the measure maximum of 2 beats. We also see a measure with 4 eighth notes, which at half a beat each also completes 2 beats for the measure.
Diving into slightly newer territory, Figure 12 shows the same usage of half notes, quarter notes, and eighth notes as in Figure 11, but in the time signature of “3/4”. As you may have already guessed, a 3/4-time signature allows you to have 3 beats per measure while the quarter note is still getting the beat. This time signature is commonly associated with a type of dance called the waltz and you may have heard this type of music on a merry-go-round. By analyzing Figure 12, we can get a better understanding of what “3 beats per measure” really means. The first measure in Figure 12 has a dotted half note, which, as we saw earlier, is equal to 3 beats (2 for the half note and 1 for half the half note indicated by the dot) and is kind of like the whole note for 3/4. Further, the second measure shows only 3 quarter notes fulfill the measure, while the third measure shows 6 eighth notes fulfill a measure. Hopefully, from this example you can begin to see that the top number of the time signature dictates how many notes each measure can hold.
To help us further understand the bottom number of the time signature, we can inspect Figure 13, which presents to us a similar set of example measures but written in “6/8” time. As we understood going from 4/4 to 3/4 meant going from 4-beats-per-measure to 3-beats-per-measure, we can similarly adopt this logic to interpret the top 6 number of 6/8 to mean there will be 6-beats-per-measure. However, what does the 8 mean? Well, in all the previous examples, the bottom number was 4, and that meant the quarter note got the beat, so, if we see an 8 as the bottom number it means that the eighth note gets the beat instead. It’s that simple! Now you can see, the first measure in Figure 13 is a dotted half note, which like 3/4, provides all the beats a measure can hold; however, it has 6 counts instead of 3 because you are counting the number of eighth notes that could fit in the measure and not the number of quarter notes. The second measure of Figure 13 is also similar to 3 quarter notes in 3/4, except each quarter note gets 2 counts each because 1 quarter note is equal to 2 eighth notes. The last measure in Figure 13 looks a little different, but best illustrates the meaning of 6/8 by showing a completed measure with 6 eighth notes. Again, you may further suspect that 6/8 and 3/4 are even more similar as both 6 and 8 are twice 3 and 4, respectively, and while that may be true, they sound different from one another. Where 3/4 is used for waltz type dancing (think ballroom dancing), 6/8 is commonly used for jigs (think bar-room dancing).
Closeout
Well, we sure did cover a lot! I hope by the end of this lesson you have a better understanding of how to read a time signature, how to recognize certain notes based on a beat-value, and how to count. As far as time signatures go, there are many others such as 5/4 (5 beats per measure/ quarter note gets beat), 7/8 (7 beats per measure/ eighth note gets beat), 3/2 (3 beats per measure/ half note gets beat), but the theory is the same where the top number tells you how many beats per measure and the bottom number tells you which note (half, quarter, or eighth) gets the beat. As I will recommend in the Exercise portions of the lessons, it helps to practice with a metronome and, to do so, you set a number that will click a number of beats per minute (bpm). For instance, if I set the metronome to 60, it will click 60 beats in one minute. Each click would provide a sound for each beat in a measure, so, if I were playing quarter notes in 4/4, I would play a note with each click, or if I were playing eighth notes in 4/4, I would play 2 notes with each click. Again, these concepts become more intuitive the more you use them, but once you feel comfortable with counting, playing will be much more fun!