Note Values
In order to play any pitch (sound) on our treble or bass staves, we need to know how long to hold to play it for. We do this by assigning certain notes different amounts of time. In music we call this time 'beats'.The main notes that we use are:
In order to play any pitch (sound) on our treble or bass staves, we need to know how long to hold to play it for. We do this by assigning certain notes different amounts of time. In music we call this time 'beats'.The main notes that we use are:
Now in order to count with these we can put them in groups of four beats:
From this picture we can see that we can fit only one semibreve into four beats, two minims, four crotchets and eight quavers (two in each beat).
But because we have two quavers in each beat, we need to be able have something to count on the second quaver. So in between the numbers '1 2 3 4' we will put a '+' symbol. In music we call these 'and':
Now lets take a look at all of these notes values on the treble stave:
(click on the picture to zoom in)
Of course these note values don't have to stay in the F space(between the first and second line), they can be put anywhere on the stave which is how we make melody; by changing the pitch:
Now that we have seen the values that tell us to make noise, we can look at the symbols that tell us when to have silence. These are called RESTS.
Rests
Rests
Rests are used with the same values (amount of beats) that the normal notes do, the difference is that they tell us not to make a sound rather than hold the sound on. They will look like this:
We can see in this picture that the rests are assigned beats. This tells us how long to wait until playing again. On the stave they would look like this:
We can also pair them up with the note values that have the same amount of beats:
So lets have a look at what a piece of music would look like with both notes of different pitch (A, B, C, D etc.), length (crotchets, minims etc.) and also with rests:
Summary:
- Note Values help us identify how long to hold a sound
- Semibreves are held for Four Beats
- Minims are held for Two Beats
- Crotchets for One Beat
- Quavers for Half a Beat
- Rests tell us to have silence instead of holding on sound
- Rests have the same length of beats as the note values e.g. a crotchet is held on for One Beat; a crotchet rest is held on for One Beat
