Rythm & Time
Even though this is a review section, time is a fundamental aspect of music theory that is often left out of formal music-theory study. Time is more than just counting beats and bars. Time can dictate the feel and flow of a piece; even harmony has a rhythm to it, aptly called harmonic rhythm. You'll start with time signatures, as they are the first time-related aspect you need to understand in detail.
Time Signatures
Music is divided into bars, or measures, for reading convenience and for musical purposes. Most music adheres to a meter, which affects the phrasing of the melody. If you don't have a lot of experience reading music, rhythm can be a very difficult concept to grasp.
The most standard time signature is ). So common time breaks up each measure into four beats, as a quarter note receives one beat. You can, of course, further divide the measure into as many small parts as you like, but in the end, it must still add up to four beats.
Rhythm
Music is composed of pitch and rhythm. Although finer elements come into play later on, such as dynamics and expression, music can be made simply by knowing which note and how long to hold it. Without rhythm, people couldn't fully read music.
Rhythm is music's way of setting the duration of a note. Music accomplishes this task by varying the appearance of the notes that sit on the staff. Different rhythms indicate different note lengths. To get rolling, you need to hear about an essential concept: beat. Have you ever been to a concert and clapped along with 30,000 other fans? Have you noticed how everyone claps together in a steady pattern? Did you ever wonder how 30,000 people could possibly agree on anything? If you've been to a dance club, you may have noticed that there is always a steady drumbeat or bass line, usually up-tempo, to drive the music along. Those are examples of pulse and beat in music. Rhythm is a primal element, and pulse and beat are universal concepts.
Time Signatures
The individual beats in a piece of music are divided into measures, also known as bars, which are repeating groups of beats. And a time signature is made up of two numbers that appear above and below each other, as in these examples:
, etc., which can also be represented as 4/4 and 3/4
These numbers appear in the first measure of a chart or score to tell you how to count the piece of music. The top number represents the number of beats in each measure, and the bottom number tells you what kind of note gets one beat. For example, in the second example above the “3” on top means there are three beats per measure, and the “4” on the bottom means that a quarter note gets one beat. Of these two numbers, the one that matters most in determining the feel of a piece of music is the top one — the number of beats per measure.
The most common time signature is 4/4. In this time there are four beats per measure, and the quarter note gets one beat. When the bandleader counts the song off with a “1-2-3-4” he is counting off one measure at the exact speed that you'll be playing the song.
There's virtually no limit to the number of possible time signatures. You can have as many beats as you want in a measure — a whole piece of music could be written as one measure if you wanted to go to extremes.
Each time signature has its own emotional feel. Besides 4/4 the most common time signatures and their feels are:
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2/4 which has a hopping polka feel, counted 1-2, 1-2
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3/4 which has a circular or waltz feel, counted 1-2-3, 1-2-3
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5/4 which has a measure-of-three with a two-beat accent feel, counted 1-2-3-4-5, 1-2-3-4-5
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7/4 which has a measure-of-four with a three-beat accent feel, counted 1-2-3-4-5-6-7, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7
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1/4 which has a three-measures-of-three with a two-beat accent feel, counted 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11, 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10-11
But the fact is, you can create any time signature you want, assigning any number of beats to the measure and any note value as getting one beat.
Note Length Values
The lengths of notes are indicated through a system of note heads, note stems, and note flags. The head of the note is the oval that is either white or black in the center. The stem is the line that either rises or falls vertically from the note, and the flag is either a flag shape coming off of the end of the stem farthest from the note head, or a heavy horizontal line connecting two or more notes together. Here are examples of different kinds of notes and their values in 4/4 time:
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Whole note = oval note head with white center and no stem — gets four beats
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Half note = oval note head with a white center and a stem — gets two beats
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Quarter note = oval note head with a black center and a stem — gets one beat
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Eighth note = oval note head with a black center, a stem, and one flag — gets a half beat
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Sixteenth note = oval note head with a black center, a stem, and two flags — gets one quarter of a beat
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Thirty-second note = oval note head with a black center, a stem, and three flags — gets one eighth of a beat
Just so you understand the relationship between these different note values, one whole note is equal to two half notes, four quarter notes, eight eighth notes, sixteen sixteenth notes, or thirty-two thirty-second notes.
