Lesson 4 of 5
Rhythm and counting
Play the right keys at the wrong time and nobody recognises the tune. Play a wrong key at the right time and the song survives. Rhythm is half of music, and it is completely learnable.
- What the beat is, and what tempo measures
- How beats group into bars, and what 4/4 means
- How long quarter, half and whole notes last
- How to land your notes with the beat rather than near it
About ten minutes of reading, a keyboard exercise you play yourself, and a ten question quiz at the end.
The beat
The beat is the steady pulse under a piece of music, the thing your foot taps without being asked. It never speeds up or slows down on its own; it ticks like a clock for the whole song.
How fast the beat ticks is the tempo, measured in beats per minute. Sixty beats per minute is one beat every second. The practice room slider you have already used sets exactly this number, and the ticking device musicians practise with is called a metronome.
More on this: the online metronome.
Bars and counting to four
Beats are bundled into small groups called bars. The most common grouping is four beats to a bar, written as 4 over 4 at the start of a piece and spoken as four four time.
Musicians count the beats out loud: one, two, three, four, then straight back to one for the next bar. The count is the skeleton of the music. Every note you play hangs on one of those numbers, which is why counting aloud, however silly it feels, is the fastest rhythm skill there is.
More on this: how note lengths look on the page.
Note lengths: quarter, half, whole
Notes last for different numbers of beats. A quarter note lasts one beat: four of them fill a bar, one per count. A half note lasts two beats: press on one, hold through two, press on three, hold through four. A whole note lasts all four beats: press on one and hold to the end of the bar.
The names are just fractions of a four beat bar: a whole note fills the whole bar, a half note fills half, a quarter note fills a quarter. Long notes are not slower playing; they are one press and a long hold while the count keeps walking underneath.
More on this: the practice room, which grades your timing.
Playing in time
Playing in time means your press lands together with the beat, not somewhere near it. The skill is anticipation: you hear the tick coming and move with it, the way you catch a ball where it will be.
The exercise below is the whole lesson in miniature. The metronome counts you in for one bar, then you tap the note on the beats shown, and every tap is judged: with the beat, or off it. Start slow. Slow and together beats fast and scattered, here and everywhere in music.
You will hear four clicks to count you in, then the pattern begins. Tap the glowing C on the marked beats. Headphones help. Press Hear the demo to hear each pattern first.
Loading the exercise…
Exercise complete. Nicely done.
- The beat is the steady pulse. Tempo is how fast it ticks
- Four four time means four beats in every bar, counted 1 2 3 4
- Quarter note one beat, half note two beats, whole note four
- Slow and together beats fast and scattered, every time
Read these four lines again before the quiz and you will almost certainly pass it first time.
Ten questions from this lesson, one at a time, four answers each. You get ten minutes, the same pace as a real theory test, and every answer is explained whether you get it right or not. Score ten out of ten and you are ready for the next lesson.
Questions
About this lesson
What exactly does a metronome do?
It clicks at a steady speed you choose, measured in beats per minute, giving you an honest external beat to play against. Practising with one exposes rushing and dragging that you cannot hear in your own playing, which is why musicians at every level still use them.
What tempo should a beginner practise at?
Slower than feels impressive. Somewhere around 60 to 80 beats per minute leaves room to think and still land with the click. The rule that matters: pick a speed where you can play correctly, and only raise it once correct feels easy.
Is 4/4 the only time signature?
No, only the most common. Three beats to a bar, written 3/4, gives the swaying feel of a waltz, and plenty of other groupings exist. Everything in this lesson transfers: the count just runs to a different number before returning to one.
Should I count out loud or in my head?
Out loud, at least at first. Speaking the count forces it to stay steady while your hands work, and it reveals instantly when a hold was cut short. Counting silently comes naturally later, once the spoken habit has done its job.
← Lesson 3: Steps, skips and your first melody · All lessons · Lesson 5: Reading the staff →
Want the short version instead of the lesson? the free online metronome is the same steady click, on its own page for any practice session.