Note Values and Rests
Every note value is half the one before it. That is the entire system, and it works the same for silences. Halve a note here with one tap and hear the duration change while the click stays where it was.
- halving each time
- whole to sixteenth
- silence counts too
which styles use it
Every style on this site
In short
A whole note lasts four beats in common time, a half note two, a quarter note one, an eighth note half a beat, and so on down. Rests follow the same series exactly: there is a whole rest, a half rest, a quarter rest. A dot after a note adds half its value again, which is how you write a length that does not fit the halving.
The rests are the part beginners skip and drummers care about most. What you leave out shapes a groove as much as what you put in.
How to count it
- Count the subdivision, not the note
If there are sixteenth notes anywhere in the bar, count in sixteenths throughout and the awkward ones stop being awkward.
- Say it before you play it
Speaking a rhythm out loud finds errors that reading it silently hides.
- Treat rests as events
A rest is something you do, not something that happens while you wait.
Where you run into this
- In every piece of written music, which is most of the reason to learn this at all.
- In programming drums, where note values become grid positions.
- In arranging, where the gaps decide whether a part sits in the track or fights it.
Our own examples
One pitch, played as a whole, half, quarter, eighth and sixteenth note over the same click. Then the same series as rests, so the silences are as audible as the notes.
Keep going
Everything in rhythm
- Pulse, Tempo and Meter
- Time Signatures
- Note Values and Rests
- Hypermeter