In the world of note reading it is important to understand note values and time signatures.
The relationship of the note values to time signatures is going to give you the rhythm that you are going to be playing
when you're strumming, soloing, etcetera.
If you look in the notes you will see a little picture that has a four over a four
and then directly to the left of it, it looks like you have a glorified and symbol.
This is the symbol for the treble clef which is what the guitar plays out of.
Go back to this four over four section on the picture.
The top number represents how many beats there are in a measure.
If there is four you are going to count to four before starting over.
If there is five you are going to count to five before starting over.
You will hear a lot of people if they are strumming the guitar the might vocalize one, two, three, four.
One, two, three, four.
Each grouping of four in that case is considered a measure.
In a four over four time signature you are going to have four of those beats per measure.
The bottom note refers to which note gets the beat.
We are going to be going over the different types of note values in a second and that will make a little more sense to you.
If you look at the notes you will see we have got a couple different types of notes.
Actually more than a couple you've got quite a number of different types of notes.
There are even more than what is listed here but these are the common ones that you will see.
First we have got a whole note.
A whole note is a circle without a stem.
The whole note in a four, four time signature is going to take up the entire measure.
So if I am counting to four and I've got a little pulse, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, ONE, two ,three, four.
The whole note is taking up the entire measure it gets four counts.
You've got the whole note.
You've got the half note. Which is a circle with an open center with a stem.
You've got a quarter note. Which is a black dot with a stem.
You've got an eighth note. Which is a black dot with a stem and a tail that comes off of it.
Then you have a sixteenth note. Which is a black dot with a stem and two tails that come off of it.
In the four, four time signature, we are saying that the quarter note because of the four.
The quarter note is going to get the count. The quarter note is going to get the beat.
In a four, four time signature there are four quarter notes within a measure.
So if I am playing quarter notes to this pulse, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.
I would be doing one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.
Half notes are twice the value of a quarter note.
So if I am playing half notes to that same general pulse, it is going to sound like this.
One, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.
When you go below the quarter note value in a four, four time signature
because remember the quarter note is getting the beat.
One, two, three, four.
So if you're playing faster notes than that and you are dividing the quarter note up that is called subdividing the beat.
Again, the quarter note gets one beat so you are going to subdivide so you will divide in half the quarter note
and you are going to get an eighth note.
Those are counted in a four, four time signature like this.
One and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and one and two and three and four and.
So you've got this one and thing that helps you keep pulse as you are counting.
Sixteenth notes are going to divide the eighth note in half.
Those are counted one e and uh so if you are going to play a whole measure of sixteenth notes it's going to sound like this.
One E and Uh Two E and Uh
Three E and Uh Four E and Uh
One E and Uh Two E and Uh
Three E and Uh Four E and Uh
What makes music cool is that you are taking a pulse, you are taking a tempo
and you are doing different combinations of note values to give you rhythms.
If I randomly choose a couple different note values and play this note I could do something like.
One, two, three, four. One and uh two, three e and uh four.
One and two and three e and uh four.
What I am doing is I am choosing a combination of whole, half, sixteenths, eighth notes and I'm creating a rhythm.
In one of the next lessons we are going to be specifically studying strum patterns
and different variations you can get out of that.
It's very important that you understand this idea of rhythm in musical notation to get that.