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In this music theory lesson for beginners we will focus on note and rest values.
You will learn how long or short notes and their rests are, how the musical symbols for note values are written, and the logic behind it!
Music is an organized combination of sounds and silences.
A musical note can in itself show only how long or short a sound is. The same goes for musical rests, or silences.
But when placed on a musical staff notes can also show pitch- or how high or low they should sound, simply by placing the note higher or lower.
So, with note symbols you can show music pitch and note duration (or note and rest values). Or to put it simpler; a musical note on a staff shows both:
Here we will take a look at the different note symbols used to show note and rest values, or how long or short (duration or note value) a note or rest is.
Music notes always have a note head. It is the note heads’ placement on the staff that tells us what pitch to play, or sing:
Only the whole note (above) has no stem. All other note values have stems. The pitch doesn’t change, but adding a stem divides the note value by half:
By filling in the note head, the note value is divided by half again:
By adding a little “flag”, the note value is cut in half once more:
Adding another “flag”, cuts it in half again:
…and so it continues.
The direction of the stem can be either up or down:
However, in groups of notes the stems are pulled where it makes most sense so that the stems in the group all have the same direction.
There are many note symbols used when writing music.
Music is so subjective and has so many means of expression that trying to write exactly how music should be played makes the use of many different symbols a necessity.
But, by understanding the logic behind the music note symbols that are used in the western musical notation, it is actually not so hard to learn.
You might even find it fascinating, as I do, with the clever way that people have developed a system to “describe” something as abstract as music!