Understanding Whole, Quarter And Half Notes
Wednesday, September 1st, 2010Can you remember your first music classes in grade school?. You might be able to recall learn about Ta’s, Tee Tee Ta’s and other such noises that didn’t make a lot of sense at the time. What you were actually learning in essence was the basics of beats and notes in common 4/4 time music.
What is 4/4 Time
When you look at sheet music, especially in popular music, most of it is in what’s known as common time or 4 beats per measure of music. Counting out one, two, three and four with an even amount of time separating each number could be a good example of a measure or bar of music in 4/4 time. The speed at which you could isn’t what matters it’s what you count to (in this case four) speed is tempo not number of beats.
Whole Notes
A whole note stretches an entire bar of music. So in our example there would be one note per four beats. In the example above I gave you if you held the same note for the count of four that would be a whole note. This is of course if we’re in common 4/4 time the length of that whole note would change pending the number of beats per bar.
Half Notes
A half note is exactly one half of a whole note. In common time which is 4/4/ there would be two half notes that span two beats each, and two half notes will last the same length of time as a whole note.
Quarter Note
You’ve probably already guessed it but a quarter note is held for half the length of time as a half note or one quarter the length of time as a whole note. Each of these other beats relates back to be a portion of a whole note. In common time a quarter note is four notes per bar, so in our example each the 1, the 2, the 3 and the 4 would receive it’s own note.
This is a simple explanation, you can actually keep going to eighth notes and sixteenth notes. I believe following the pattern I just showed you could determine the time these notes would receive.
To learn more about musical theory on the Piano consider trying a piano lesson dvd. These self study lessons are becoming more popular to teach yourself piano thanks to lower cost and time commitment then private lessons. Give it a try.