Category Archives: the Practice Pad

Video Music Lessons from the Practice Pad – Very Small Note Values part 3

Posted on May 11, 2012 | Leave a comment

UpbeatRhythms.com – the Practice Pad

Lesson III – Very Small Note Values – Part III

This is the third and final installment of the corresponding music lessons related to our video music lesson on very small note values. Links to the previous two installments can be found at the end of the article.

Welcome back! Moving right along and continuing the mathematical process we next come to 64th notes. Once again, all you need to do notation-wise is to add one flag, so a 64th note possesses four flags. And just as a 64th note has four flags, a 64th note rest has four hooks as well. It takes sixty-four of these notes to fill up one bar in 4/4 time, so clearly we are in the realm of the very short note durations at this point. It takes twice as many of these notes to fill up your measure, and they’re half as long in duration. As the note values get shorter and shorter, we simply keep adding flags one by one and halving the duration of each note compared to the previous type.

And finally, you’ve got your 128th note, which has five flags, and is an extremely short note value to say the least. And of course in the case of a rarely seen 128th note rest, you’d be looking for five hooks as well.

Whether you’re looking at individually flagged notes, or groupings of beamed notes, the number of each is your most important bit of information in order to ensure rhythmic accuracy. Now that you know how many flags belong to each note value, and the fact that each value is twice as quick as the previous one (or half as long in duration, whichever way is easiest to conceptualize), we no longer have to stare at an inky black page full of tiny notes and rests without knowing how the heck we’re going to spit out all those notes without getting chastised by the conductor or band leader.

In upcoming music lessons on notes and notations, we’ll begin talking about triplets, and also dotted notes. You might have heard of them, if not don’t worry, we’ll talk about all that stuff in detail as continue on with our comprehensive examination of reading rhythms, approaching rhythms, and handling rhythms in any music that you happen to come across.

Thanks for checking out UpbeatRhythms.com, we hope you’re enjoying the video music lessons as well as the related blog articles and we really appreciate you stopping by. And please come back for the next series of videos, because it’s full speed ahead and you won’t want to miss anything! See ya then.

Very Small Note Values Article Part 1

Very Small Note Values Article Part 2

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Tagged advice, drums, education, free, groove, learning, lessons, music, musical, musician, note values, notes, percussion, resources, rests, rhythm, small, tutorials

Video Music Lessons from the Practice Pad – Very Small Note Values part 2

Posted on May 7, 2012 | Leave a comment

UpbeatRhythms.com – the Practice Pad

Lesson III – Very Small Note Values – Part 2

This is the second installment of the corresponding music lessons related to our video music lesson on very small note values. You can find part one of the written article here.

Now we turn our attention to sixteenth notes, and you’ll notice right away the 16th note looks almost like an eighth note. The only difference is the 16th note has two flags instead of one. And the 16th note has half the value of an 8th note. And also looking here at 16th note rests, it looks almost like an eighth note rest except it has two little flags instead of the one.

Regarding rests, from eighth note rests and shorter rest durations, they also include a flag-like appendage, which is known as a hook. Eighth note rests have just one hook, just as eighth notes have just one flag, as we get into the smaller rest values you add a hook for each smaller value, just as you add a flag to the smaller and smaller notes beginning with one flag on an eighth note, two flags on a 16th note, and so on. So an eighth note rest possesses one little hook, a 16th note rest has two, a 32nd note rest has three, and so on.

You have probably started to figure out by now that when moving along to the 32nd note it is very similar in appearance to the 16th note (just as a 16th note is very similar to an eighth note), except that we now see three flags rather than two. The 32nd note rest, again, has three hooks rather than two. A 32nd note is half the value of a 16th note, and a 32nd note rest is half the silence of a 16th note rest.

Keep in mind that you won’t necessarily see an entire bar of nothing but 32nd notes, or 16th notes, or any other for that matter. Sometimes you do, sometimes it varies. You might just see one or two beats’ worth of them, or just one or two notes or rests, or some combination of 32nd notes, 32nd note rests, and other note values within a measure. We will delve deeply into discussing just how to break down a complicated measure so that you can easily distinguish even the most complex rhythms, but as a starting point you really have got to know what you’re looking for, and knowing how many flags each note is entitled to is essential in understanding these small note values as soon as you see them. In the case of a 32nd note, you’re going to be looking for three flags or three beams to let you know that what you’re looking at is, in fact, a 32nd note time value.

Thank you for checking out this installment of our series on very small note values, please check back for the third and final installment which will be posted later this week. Glad you stopped by to visit UpbeatRhythms.com, see you next time!

Very Small Note Values Article Part 1

video music tutorial for this article

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Tagged advice, drums, education, free, groove, learning, lessons, music, musical, musician, note values, notes, percussion, resources, rests, rhythm, small, tutorials

Video Music Lessons from the Practice Pad – Very Small Note Values part 1

Posted on May 4, 2012 | Leave a comment

UpbeatRhythms.com – the Practice Pad

Lesson III – Very Small Note Values – Part I

Welcome, or welcome back, to UpbeatRhythms.com and our continuing series of tutorials on rhythm, this is part one of our supplemental music lessons which go together with the third video music tutorial over in the Practice Pad, and today we’re talking about very small note values. The video covers 16th notes, 32nd notes, 64th notes, and 128th notes, as well as corresponding 16th note – 128th note rests.

To start off, keep in mind that 128th notes are usually of extremely short duration, and are pretty rare in music. You do see them on occasion in very slow music that requires very quick passages, but generally you’re not going to see a whole lot of 128th notes in your musical travels. However, it’s good to be aware of them and know exactly what they look like when you see them (aside from the massive amount of black ink on your page lol), and in this article you’ll see that figuring out the difference between the various smaller note values and rest values is quick straightforward, both in terms of appearance as well as exactly how much sustain/period of rest, in other words the exact time duration, you’ll need to give to each of them, now having covered whole notes, which require at least four full beats, all the way down to 128th notes (and of course rests as well). Coming up in the next couple of videos, we’ll also examine triplets and dotted notes, but we’ll leave that aside for the moment and concentrate on these very small note durations.

In previous music lessons we talked about whole notes, and half notes which are half the value of a whole note. Quarter notes which are half the value of a half note, and eighth notes which are half the value of a quarter note. The eighth note is almost exactly the same as a quarter note in appearance, except it has one flag. It should be noted here that when we see groupings of these smaller notes within the space of one beat, the flags become “beams” and are used not only to indicate note values but also to link the groups of notes together, making it easier to distinguish which are which within a beat as well as within a measure. By beaming them together you can more easily distinguish the main beats within your measure, see how the smaller notes fit together within each beat, and know at a glance which notes belong to which beats.

That concludes the first part of our supplementary article, be sure to check out the education video music lessons if you haven’t already, the link is provided below, and be sure to come back for the next part of this written supplemental article related to our education video which will be available early next week, and we will be continuing our series of videos and articles on all things rhythm with plenty more videos and tutorials, it’s full speed ahead here at UpbeatRhythms.com and you won’t want to miss anything! Thanks for checking out UpbeatRhythms.com, we really appreciate you stopping by. Talk to you next time.

Very Small Note Values Article Part 2

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the Practice Pad

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Tagged advice, drums, education, free, groove, learning, lessons, music, musical, musician, note values, notes, percussion, resources, rests, rhythm, small, tutorials

Lesson Three Video Tutorial on Very Small Note Values Now Available

Posted on May 2, 2012 | Leave a comment

Hi everyone. Lesson Two of our rhythm tutorial series is now available. Please check it out!

Very Small Note Values Video Tutorial

Supplemental text and a blog post on the topic will be up soon, in the meantime hope you all enjoy the latest video. If you like it, please tweet about it and share it around, who doesn’t like free music lessons, right!?

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‘the Practice Pad’ – Time Signatures, Lesson I Part III, Cut Time

Posted on April 19, 2012 | Leave a comment

2/2, or Cut Time, Time Signature

Hello, and welcome back to Upbeat Rhythms! This is the third and final of the written supplement to our time signatures video over on the Practice Pad, which is the space for all our video tutorials and lessons here on the Upbeat Rhythms site.

Looking at Cut Time, or 2/2, here is the first time we’re seeing a different number on the bottom. Instead of a quarter note representing one entire beat, in a 2/2 situation we’re looking for a half note to represent one entire beat. The two on the bottom of the time signature represents a half-note (though unusual, it is also possible to find a one in the bottom of a time signature, representing a whole note as receiving one entire beat, more on that later but I just wanted to point it out so you get the idea that 4 means quarter, 2 means half, and so 1 would naturally mean ‘whole’). So now we’re looking for two half notes represent the entire beats and fill up our measure.

At this point you might be thinking “this sounds almost the same”, and you would be right, because it really is practically the same thing, 4/4 versus 2/2. The difference is more of a ‘feel’ thing, a way of approaching the music, the particular interpretation the composer is looking for when you play through a cut time piece rather than a common time piece. Composers use the 2/2 or cut time to indicate that the music is quick, up-tempo, or ‘double time’ feel. The conductor generally conducts in two rather than four. It depends on your tempo markings as well, of course, so it’s certainly possible to have a slow Cut Time piece. You could have the same piece written in 2/4 and the only practical difference would be there would be twice as many measures. So really it’s more a matter of musical interpretation more than anything else, and many musicians can get thrown off by this, thinking it’s a lot different than it really is. From a nuts and bolts perspective, a measure still contains four quarter notes or two half notes or some other combination of notes and rests that add up correctly. You just need to be aware that Cut Time, or 2/2, simply means that instead of in 4/4 where four quarter notes add up to a complete measure, it’s two half notes that add up to a complete measure.

And that’s cut time. Don’t let it throw you off. By the way, you don’t generally see 2/2 so much, usually you see the cut time notation instead. You see 4/4 quite a bit along with common time, but if it’s cut time usually the score provides the Cut Time notation.

In the next lesson, we’re going to start getting into smaller notes, eighth notes, sixteenth notes, maybe even talk a little bit about thirty-second notes, and we’ll move right along to some other different types of time signatures as well. So please keep an eye out for that and lots more future new content coming soon, we hope to see you there, please feel free to leave any comments or questions either below this post or over on the Practice Pad video post, and thanks very much for checking out UpbeatRhythms.com!

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Tagged 2/2, 4/4, 7/8, how many, how much, lessons, music, musicians, pad, practice, resources, rhythm, rhythms, signature, signatures, tempo, time, tutorials, upbeat

‘the Practice Pad’ – Time Signatures, Lesson I Part II, 2/4 and 3/4

Posted on April 16, 2012 | Leave a comment

2/4 & 3/4 Time Signatures

Hello, and welcome back to Upbeat Rhythms! This is part II of the written supplement to our time signatures video over on the Practice Pad, which is the space for all our video tutorials and lessons here on the Upbeat Rhythms site.

First of all, in both 2/4 and 3/4 time the number at the bottom is the same, four. What that tells us is that it’s still a quarter note that we’re looking for to make up one complete beat in our measure. In 2/4, the top note is now a two. So, unlike in common time where we need four beats to fill up our measure, in 2/4 time we just need just two beats to fill up a measure. Again, two quarter notes, as the bottom number has indicated to us.

Just like a whole note is the largest note value that can ‘fit’ in a 4/4 bar, the half note is the largest note value that can fit in a 2/4 bar. In a 3/4 situation you’d need to add a quarter note to the half note to fill up the whole bar (or some combination of notes and/or rests, of course), but again you wouldn’t see any whole notes in this case because there isn’t enough space within the measure according to what the time signature demands. Jumping ahead, the largest note value that would fit in a 3/4 bar would be a dotted half-note, but we’ll get to all that stuff as we continue along in this series. Don’t worry about that yet if you’re not familiar with dots, they’ll be addressed soon.

As you might have guessed by now, when the top number changes if you still have the four at the bottom you’re still looking at a quarter note equalling one beat, so the top number’s just going to tell you how many of those beats belong in one measure. Continuing on in this manner, a 5/4 measure means you need five quarter notes to equal one measure. 6/4 is the same idea, the quarter note is still indicated as one entire beat in your measure in the bottom of the signature, but now we need six of them. Because in a 6/4 bar you’ve got six quarter note beats in a measure. 7/4, 9/4, same deal. A quarter note is still called for to represent one complete beat, but now we need seven of them (or nine, etc) to fill up one measure. And as for half notes, whole notes, and other notes such as sixteenths and eighths (again, don’t worry if you haven’t heard of them, you will soon!), you just have to start doing the math. Basically if it takes seven quarter notes to fill up a measure, you would need fourteen eighth notes. In a 6/4 bar if it takes six quarter notes to fill up a measure, you’d need three half notes, and so on.

One more slightly unusual type of time signature that was pointed out in the video is a 1/4 time signature. Though rare, it too does occur in music from time to time. The quarter note still represents one entire beat, but there’s only one beat per bar.

Time Signatures Part I

‘the Practice Pad’ – Time Signatures, Lesson I Part I, Common Time

Posted on April 13, 2012 | Leave a comment

4/4, or ‘Common Time’, Time Signature

Hello, and thanks for stopping by Upbeat Rhythms! This is part I of the written supplement to our time signatures video over on the Practice Pad, which is the space for all our video tutorials and lessons here on the Upbeat Rhythms site. This series will begin a comprehensive look at time signatures, hopefully we’re going to cover pretty much any questions or concerns you might have about time signatures so that when you encounter any unusual or interesting time signatures in your next rehearsal or gig you’ll know exactly what it means, and you’ll have a solid understanding of all time signatures and what information they are representing in your music.

First of all we’re going to look at the most basic time signature in Western music, which is the 4/4 time signature, otherwise known as Common Time. The notation is represented either as 4/4, a four on top of another four in your time signature, or else by the “Common Time” notation which looks something like a letter C. Keep in mind, these two types are exactly the same except for what they’re called and how they’re and notated. There’s absolutely no difference to them as far as the information they convey, so if you see the ‘C’ you can think 4/4 if you want to, and vice-versa.

So as we talked about in the first tutorial, what a 4/4 time signature tells us is the number of beats in a measure (or bar), and what kind of a note is equal to one beat. The number of beats is indicated in the top number (in the case of 4/4, it’s indicating four beats per measure), and the bottom number is telling us that the quarter note (the number 4 stands for a quarter note) equals one complete beat in your 4/4 measure. So you need four quarter notes, or four quarter rests, or any other combination of notes or rests that adds up to four quarter notes, to add up to one measure. So a half note is equal to two quarter notes, so we would need two half notes to fill up one bar. A whole note is equal to four quarter notes, so we need one whole note to fill up one bar. Notes and rests are the same, value-wise, it doesn’t matter if it’s a note or a rest as long as it adds up to four quarter notes in total.

Time Signatures Part II

Lessons & Tutorials Supplemental – Whole Notes, Half Notes, Quarter Notes and Time Signatures

Posted on March 29, 2012 | Leave a comment

This week over on the Practice Pad we’re taking a look at some very basic rhythms, namely the whole note, half note, quarter note, along with whole rests, half rests, and quarter rests. We’re also beginning with an explanation of what a measure is, and what a time signature is and how to make use of it. Please check out the related video for an in-depth examination of these rhythm basics.

First of all the main unit that we talk about on the music page is known as the ‘measure‘ or ‘bar’. The terms are interchangeable, each bar (or measure) is separated by bar lines, and a measure constitutes the smallest segments of music we see generally speaking. Each bar refers back to the clef, the key signature, and the time signature for information you need to know about the bar of music you are looking at. The clef, key signature, and time signature can be found at the beginning of the chart, exercise, or piece of music you are playing. In the case of music which has clef, key or time changes within the piece, you would refer back to the most recent change when figuring out how to interpret the notes and rests you are dealing with inside the framework of the measure.

Secondly, as far as the time signature is concerned, it’s important to remember that it doesn’t matter whether it’s a note or a rest, as long as they add up to an entire measures worth of beats. All of those notes and/or rests just need to add up to the amount of beats the time signature is calling for. The top number in the time signature tells you how many notes belong in one bar. Think of the top number as ‘how many’. But that doesn’t give you quite enough information, because you also need to know what kind of note is considered to be one beat. That’s what that bottom number in the time signature is for, it’s telling you what type of note equals one beat within the bar. For example, a 4 in the bottom of the time signature stands for a quarter note. An 8 would be an eighth note, a 2 a half-note, and so on. Sometimes in modern music you might even see a quarter note or a half note or an eighth note printed in the bottom space of the time signature rather than a number. But generally speaking you’ll see a number unless you’re dealing with common time or cut time, which we’ll get to in an upcoming lesson.

A whole note in a 4/4 measure sustains for the entire four beats. The whole note is equivalent to four quarter notes. A half note sustains for two beats, equivalent to two quarter notes in this case, and a quarter note is sustained for one beat so it would take four quarter notes to fill up one 4/4 measure, two half notes, one whole note, or a combination of these notes and/or rests adding up to four quarter notes in total.

Regarding rests, sometimes whole rests vs half rests can be confusing since they look very similar. The whole note rest is a small rectangle which hangs down from the second line and is very similar to the half note rest, except the half note rest does not hang down, it sits atop the third line. So you can think of the whole note rest as like a top tooth and the half note rest as like a bottom tooth or something like that if that makes it easy for you to remember. In any case, the whole note rest is a rectangle that hangs down from the second line, the half note rest sits on the third line.

You can interchange the notes and/or the rests within a bar, as long as they add up to four quarter notes (again, four quarter notes would be needed in 4/4 time we’ll get to other time signatures in future tutorials). You can also mix them up. A half-note along with a couple of quarter notes, a half note rest and a half note, a half note rest and two quarter notes, any combination is fine. We’ll get into smaller units such as sixteenths and thirty-second notes too, as well as triplets and other unusual groupings, in our upcoming videos and lessons.

See you in the next lesson, feel free to leave a question or a comment if you’d like (we always read all comments!), and thanks very much for checking out UpbeatRhythms.com!

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Getting ready to put out my first tutorial

Posted on March 14, 2012 | Leave a comment

Hey everyone. Just another update to let you all know that the first tutorial vid for the Practice Pad is well underway and will be online sometime this week or next. At that point, I plan to have new content over there as well as here at least once a week if not more often than that.

One issue that has been holding me back just a bit has been the matter of what microphone(s) I will be choosing to work with both for screen-cast type videos as well as for regular videos, it seems as though I really need to get myself a lapel mike along with some sort of decent podcaster type mike as well. I’m doing my research and I want to get just the right items, so that’s taking a little longer than I anticipated. Any feedback or suggestions regarding mikes or any other type of equipment would be much appreciated, feel free to leave a comment below this post or send us a note under “contact UpbeatRhythms” if you prefer.

I will be updating the blog with a little info about the tutorial videos over in the Practice Pad section, so you can check it out over there or else find out first right here on the blog. If you’ve subscribed to RSS by clicking on the orange button or signing up for email alerts, you should get updates either way. If you haven’t subscribed to RSS or emails yet, what are you waiting for?

See ya all around the site, and soon in the Practice Pad as well. Hope you enjoy the new vids and I hope they’re useful and informative for you! Please let your friends know, too, because this site will be a good resource for any musicians and music educators alike.

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Check out the newest feature on UpbeatRhythms.com – the Practice Pad

Posted on March 9, 2012 | Leave a comment

You may have noticed a new section of the site available over on the right hand side under ‘lessons & tutorials’, this is the Practice Pad and will become, hopefully, the real heart and soul of this website. I intend to include a ton of free video and written tutorials covering all the basics of rhythm and percussion, all the way up to some crazy advanced stuff for anyone who wants to take it as far as they can. So, in other words, if you’re looking for fundamentals or a refresher course, you’ll find it in the practice pad. If you want to take a look at some unusual groupings like 5′s and 7′s, hybrid percussion rudiments like flam drags and inverted flam taps, or complex polyrhythmic patterns, that’s all going to be in the mix as well.

So stop over and check out the Practice Pad at UpbeatRhythms.com, and don’t forget to bookmark it because new content will be coming out fast and furious from now on.