In our last post, Note Heads Made Easy, we learnt how to draw note heads on the lines and spaces of the stave. Now we give those note heads a job. Every piece of music is made of two things: sounds and silences. A note tells us to make a sound, and a rest tells us to be silent. Both tell us something very important: how long. In this lesson we learn how long each note and rest lasts, how to write them, and then we play, clap and count them.
Put your hand on your heart. That steady thump-thump is like the beat in music. It keeps going, evenly, like a clock ticking. We measure every note by counting beats.
In this lesson our measuring cup is the crotchet beat. One crotchet = one beat = one count. Every other note is measured in crotchet beats: some are longer, some are shorter.
Musicians in Britain, India and many other countries use the names semibreve, minim, crotchet, quaver. In America they use whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note. The American names tell you the fraction of a whole note, so they're shown first in the "Type of note" column.
| Type of note | Note | Name | Value | Rest | Listen |
|---|
Notes shorter than one beat are played as a group that fills one beat, so you can hear how quick they are: 2 quavers, 4 semiquavers, 8 demisemiquavers, or 16 hemidemisemiquavers in a single beat.
Notes are shared out just like food. Here are two ways to picture it. Both tell the same story: every time you cut a piece in half, the note is worth half as much.
A whole watermelon is a semibreve: 4 crotchet beats. Cut it in half and each half is a minim: 2 beats. Cut the halves again and each quarter is a crotchet: 1 beat. Keep cutting and the slices become quavers and then semiquavers. Put all the slices back together and you still have one whole watermelon.
Now think of the semibreve as a whole bar of chocolate with 16 squares. Break it in half and you get 2 minims. Break each half again and you get 4 crotchets. Keep breaking and the pieces get smaller, but if you put them all back together you always get the same whole bar.
Watermelon or chocolate, the answer is the same: 1 semibreve = 2 minims = 4 crotchets = 8 quavers = 16 semiquavers. Each note is worth half of the note above it.
You don't need to learn six different shapes. Each new note is the one before it with one small change. Draw them in your manuscript book as you read.
Notes below the middle line have their stem going up on the right of the note head. Notes on or above the middle line have their stem going down on the left. Flags always wave to the right, whichever way the stem goes. A stem is about as long as an octave: from the note head, count 3½ spaces.
When quavers or semiquavers sit next to each other, their flags can join together into a beam. One flag becomes one beam, two flags become two beams. The value stays exactly the same.
Each note has a rest that lasts exactly as long. While you rest, you keep counting in your head; the music doesn't stop, it just goes quiet.
A dot after a note is like a helper who always brings half of what the note already has. The note keeps its own value and adds half of it again.
Take a dotted minim. A minim is worth 2 beats. Half of a minim is a crotchet, worth 1 beat. So a dotted minim is 2 + 1 = 3 crotchet beats. That's why a dotted minim lasts for 3 crotchet beats.
The dot goes just to the right of the note head, in a space. If the note sits on a line, the dot goes in the space just above.
The Stave Secrets placards show one note or rest on each card, so children can see, hold and arrange the note values for themselves. Some ways to use them:
Activities 1 and 2 listen through the microphone. Use Chrome, Edge or Safari, allow the microphone when asked, and sit in a quiet room. If the microphone isn't available, you can still practise by tapping.
You'll see a note or its name. After 4 ticks, start playing on beat 1 and hold the note for exactly the right number of beats. Let go too early or too late and you lose points.
There's no time signature, only bar lines. Add up the beats in each bar to find out how many counts each bar has. After 4 ticks, count the numbers out loud and clap on every note. On a rest, keep counting but don't clap. To clear the rhythm, I must hear both your counting and your claps.
Add up the notes and rests. How many crotchet beats do they make altogether? You can type halves as 4.5, 4 1/2 or 4½.
Join the notes into one single note with the same number of crotchet beats. Then write that note on the note E on the stave by clicking the right line or space.
Step 1: choose the single note.