Introduction

This is primarily a lesson on musical symbols and their individual purposes. Above is a staff with rhythmic values. Each note is paired with a rest on the same staff (eighth note and eighth rest). They are the same duration. The only difference is a note indicates when to play and a rest indicates when to remain silent.

A breakdown of the notes or rests:
whole note has a value of 4 beats (it is just an empty oval)
half note has a value of 2 beats (an empty oval with a line)
quarter note has a value of 1 beat (a filled in oval with a line)
eighth note has a value of half a beat or is a division of a quarter note (same with one flag)
sixteenth note is a division of the eighth note or has a value of half of an eighth note (two flags)

The same rules apply to the rests.

Notes and rests make up rhythms which is the aspect of time in music.

All of the above notes and rests are placed on a musical staff of five lines. 

 
On the staff, a time signature is placed. A time signature indicates how many beats are in a measure and what the value of each beat is. For example:

The time signature 4/4 shows us two numbers. The top number tells us how many beats are in a measure. There are four beats in a measure. The bottom number tells us the value of each beat. The value is 1/4 or a quarter note. Therefore, in 4/4, there are four beats in a measure each worth a quarter note.


A measure is marked off by bar lines. 

Notice in the example above that there are three different time signatures. The first is in 4/4 time and contains quarter notes and a quarter rest. Because you may only have four quarter notes or rests in one measure, both measures are written correctly.

The second staff has a time signature of 3/4 and uses quarter notes, quarter rests, and a half note. In 3/4 there are three beats per measure, each worth a quarter note. Look at the second measure. Because a half note is worth two quarter notes, the second measure shows one half note and one quarter note. It adds up to three quarter notes. We will learn how to count this out loud.


The last example is in 2/4. Notice that the eighth notes are tied together with a bar line rather than all being separate with individual flags. This is a standard way of writing and can also be used with sixteenth notes. In 2/4 there are two notes per measure, each worth a quarter note. Because two eighth notes are equal to one quarter note, in 2/4 you can fill a measure with four eighth notes as pictured above.