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Rhythmic

Notation

Charts

What is a beat?

A beat is a pulse or basic duration that repeats regularly throughout a piece of music. A beat is similar to one pulse of your heart or a single tick of a clock. And just like the beat of a heart or the tick of a clock, it takes many beats for music to fulfill its purpose.

Each beat can be subdivided into shorter beats. In written music, these beats and fractions of beats are represented by notes and rests.

Note values

The duration of a musical sound is represented by a note value. Each note value can be subdivided by fractions of that note value. These note values and fractions are depicted by note heads, stems and flags:

Relative note values

A whole note equals two half notes:

A half note equals two quarter notes:

A quarter note equals two eighth notes:

An eighth note equals two sixteenth notes:

The following chart illustrates these relative note values: