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Timing and Note Duration
If you enjoy any kind of music at all, you’ve undoubtedly found yourself tapping your feet, or your hands, or
nodding your head or something similar. If so, you already have a grasp of timing in music. Timing in music
is not measured in seconds or minutes or any specific length of time, but rather in beats. Beats are actually
a completely arbitrary measure, and only denote timing through their relation to the beats around them. Any song
can be played at any tempo - or speed - and the speed is decided solely by the player.
In music, the beats are divided into measures. Take a look at this example:
After clef emblem you’ll see a 4 on top of another. This means that every measure (divided by the blue lines)
has 4 beats, and that a quarter note is worth one beat. That may sound a bit nonsensical now, but after learning
the types of notes and their lengths it’ll make a little more sense. Look at this example:
You’ll see that every note on this staff is an “e” but that in every measure the note looks different. In the
first measure the e has no line off of it and is hollow. This is called a whole note and is the longest duration
note. The second measure has two notes in it, both are hollow but have lines (or staves) off of them. These are
called half notes. In the third measure the notes are no longer hollow, but also have staves. These are called
quarter notes. In the final measure the notes are not hollow, have staves and also have little flags off of the
staves (which are here connected because the flags would otherwise overlap and looks stupid). These are called
eighth notes. Now looking at each measure, you’ll see that in each the number of notes is different. This is
because of the time signature (4/4, as we discussed earlier). Every measure has 4 beats, and a quarter note is
worth one beat. Thus each measure can contain 4 quarter notes (for a total of 4 beats), 2 half notes (which are
each the same length as two quarter notes), 1 whole note (which is 4 times a quarter note) or 8 eighth notes.
It’s easiest to think of not length in fractions. If the time signature is 4/4, you can have 4 beats and a quarter
note is worth one beat. Soa quarter note is 1/4, a half note is 1/2, a whole note is 1, and eighth note is 1/8
and so on. The total for a measure must equal 1. Therefore any combination of notes will work, as long as the
fractions add up to 1. Let’s look at a more complex example:
Here you see that again the time signature is 4/4, however we have mixed note lengths in this example. The first
measure has a half note, a quarter note, and two eighth notes. If every measure has to add up to one, here we have
1/2, 1/4, 1/8 and 1/8. Added up these fractions equal one, so this measure is fine. The second measure has two
half notes, which add up to 1, an he third measure has two eighth notes, two quarter notes, and two more eighth
notes which also add up to 1. Again it cannot be emphasized enough that every measure must have the correct number
of beats. You cannot have a measure in 4/4 times that has, say, only 3 quarter notes. If you want to leave an
empty space you must have what are called rests, which take the place of notes. Look at this:
You can see here that the first measure only has 3 quarter notes, which only equal 3 notes. However, there is a
fourth element, the symbol after those three notes which is a quarter rest. It is equal to a quarter note, but
it tells the player to play nothing, to rest. After that there is a half note and a small box. This box represents
a half rest. The following measure has 7 eighth notes, and then an eighth rest. The last measure has symbol very
similar to the half rest, except this symbol hangs down from the bar rather than up and is a whole rest, making the
entire measure blank. Rests are an integral part of any musical piece and are not usually just filler; they often
have a musical or dramatic purpose.
This lesson has gone over the rudiments of musical timing. There are other things like 16th and 32nd notes,
which are merely eighth notes with another flag, or two more flags. Dotted notes, which add 1/2 the value of
the note to the note itself, thus a dotted quarter note would be worth a quarter note and an eighth note put
together. To master timing you should practice counting the timing aloud as you play, until the natural flow of
the measure is subconscious rather than consuming all of your attention. We cannot stress how important timing
is, because in predominantly improvised music like Jazz, timing is everything. An ensemble of incredible musicians
who cannot count the time in a song will make nothing but noise.
Learned this material? Take the quiz and finalize it!.
Continue to Lesson 2
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