Important! Know Your Musical Notes and Values

["The Freq"]

FIG.1


Here is the basic music chart for notes and their values. I've included
how to count through these notes (in red) but there are a few ways to do this but this is the most common.

Simply put, musical notes are "fractions" like you're taught in math class. Each note has a value. The value is basically how long the note sustains from when it is struck to when it ends. A vocalist can sustain a note, just like a guitar or a horn but a drum in most cases cannot. In that case, you must "assume" the sound of the drum is sustaining throughout the value of the note even if the actual drum sound doesn't last that long.

If you understand the basic old school 12 inch measuring ruler, you can easily understand the foundation of musical note values.
FIG.2

FIG.3


There are "16" 1/16ths in one inch of measurement on a ruler.
In music, there are "16" 16th notes that make up one bar of basic music.

Counting "1e+a 2e+a 3e+a 4 e+a" is counting in 16th notes.
It's easier to count this way in music. It may sound dumb to count this way out loud, but it is easier to count this way especially if you're working on a fast exercise. Try it and then try counting 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12,13,14,15,16. With practice, you'll be able to count the "1e+a" faster. NOTE: the "+" symbol is pronounced "and" so the phrase is "one, E, and, AH. Make sense?

In the chart at the top of the page (Fig.1), you can see all the break downs of the notes while using this counting method. When you count, it must be even just like it is written. NO slowing down in the middle or speeding up. It is best to practice with a metronome with all exercises you do. Anyways, in the chart (Fig.1) you will see the 32 notes below the 16ths. You will notice that the count is the same as all the others. What you have to keep in mind is that for every number and letter you count, you will now hit 2x's. Understand? When doing 16ths, you count for every note, but because 32nds are faster, it's harder to count faster so you have to get use to saying "1e+a" with 2 hits on each symbol. When it comes to 64th notes, you will hit 4 times for each symbol. Obviously, 64ths are really fast compared to 16ths and again hard to count to.

64ths>>> 1=4 hits, e=4 hits, +=4 hits, a=4 hits.

That's a basic break down. As drum music gets more complicated, it becomes almost like a connect the dots game with your counting method. All this will take time to grasp.



"to be continued"

["The Freq"]

Now there's a trick to reading music notes and being able to know what their values are. I had to come up with a way to teach my students this and came up with the "downbeat arrow and upbeat arrow. I will explain this in a bit. Notes are fairly easy to count when they are strictly the face value notes you see in the Fig. 1 chart at the top of this post. Music notation however adds "dotted" notes. This is where things get tricky. Why have dotted notes? Well, it basically allows the notes to not sound so mechanical. It also allows for better creativity. Dotted notes still have a value. When a note is followed by a dot, the dot is equivalent to half the value of the note it follows, for example if a dot follows a quarter note, add 1/8 to it's value. Basic fractions. A 1/4 note is equal to 2- 8th notes plus the dot, it now equals 3 8th notes.
Confused yet? :-)

You also have to remember that the notes in a bar of music have to add up to whatever the bar of music states.
Now you're wondering how you find out what the value of the bar of music is. It's easy. Look at the scale below and look at the red circled numbers 4 over 4.
FIG.4


The numbers 4/4 that are circled in red are telling you what the total value of the bar should be. The bottom number (4) is the note, which in this example is a quarter note. The top number, in this case is 4, is telling you how many quarter notes the bar should total which is 4 quarter notes or simply "one whole note" (refer back to FIG. 1 and the pyramid of notes). A whole note is also the same as, 16 16th notes. If the bar had a 5/4 at the left of it, the value of the bar would be equal to 5 quarter notes. If the bar started with 7/8 that bars value would be 7 8th notes. There are many different time signatures and these are just a few common ones. Understand? The notes in the bar can be anything and can also contain dotted notes but the total value of those notes must equal the time signature, in this case, 4/4 or 4 quarter notes. Like I mentioned earlier, it's simple mathematics.

Before going any further I must address the music scale and how each part of the drumkit is shown on that scale. A picture is worth a thousand words so below is the chart showing the break down. Most authors of drum books use this system but there are slight variables to it depending on the artist and also the drumset size.
Learn this chart and you will find it a lot easier to see an exercise and absorb what's written.
FIG. 5


"To Be Continued"

["The Freq"]

The up beat and down beat arrow system
FIG. 6


I came up with the arrow system just to help my students with the values of notes using mainly whole notes, half notes, 8th notes and 16th notes. I just found that students got confused with dotted notes and understanding the value of notes that had dots.
In FIG. 6 above you see I've put "v" and "^" in the exercise.
On the top line you'll see the hi hat line, marked with "X's" (see FIG. 5) and on the middle space and bottom space, you have your snare and kick drum notes.
The hardest part of reading music is getting use to identifying the notes but also what part of the kit you're suppose to hit. In the above Fig. 6 example, the hi hat line are 8th notes, the snare drum space below are quarter notes and finally the bottom space is the Kick and they are also quarter notes. As you can see, notes can be placed on "lines" and "spaces" of a scale. If we were dealing with music notation for say a vocalist or a bass guitar, each note on the bar scale would be a note related to a pitch. Each line has a label... E, G, B, D, F (top to bottom) and the spaces are (F, A, C, E). Having the notes place on different lines and spaces makes the singer sing up and down in pitch. With drums however, it is different. With drums, each line and space is part of the drumkit as noted in FIG.5.

Now back to FIG. 6. You will see that I use "V's" that run exactly with the counts of 16th notes on top of the bar scale. V=Downbeat, ^=Upbeat.
If you follow both the up and down "V's" you will see that a quarter note has "v^v^" but the top line 8th notes have "v^".
A quarter note is; equal to 4 - 16th notes, or the equivalent of counting 1e+a, but also "v^v^" which is a "down beat, up beat,, down beat, up beat".

I'll explain down beat and up beat. Take your arm and stick it straight out. Now, move your arm downwards about a foot and stop and hold it there. That is the down beat. From the stopped position move your arm up to the straight arm out position you first started with. This motion is the up beat. Makes sense? Ever wonder why an orchestra conductor is throwing his arms around in the air? He is counting and he also dictating the up and down beats and tempo (speed) to his orchestra members. Get it? He uses different waving patterns for different situations. Yes, he has a purpose :-). For us, we will only use the simple up and down motion for now.

Going back to the hi hat line in FIG 6., the first 8th note has a "v^" before you come to the next 8th note. That means that from the straight arm out position, you go down to strike the hi hat (V) and then once done striking, your arm goes back UP (^). Also remember that counting wise the first 8th note is equal to the count "1 e" which is the same as 2 16ths. You should see now that in this example a single "V" is equal to a 16th value and also "^" is a 16th value. Here's the tough part to understand. In the FIG. 6 example, you'll notice that all striked notes (notes that actually hit drums) are on a downbeat or (V) at some point in the bar. As music gets more complicated, you will see notes on the up beat on a scale hit drums also. This is wear visualizing your arm out and the down and up movements will help understand where those hits happen.

So here's a quick recap using FIG 6.

8th note = "v^" or 2 16ths
quarter note = "v^v^" or 4 16ths or 2 8ths. (basic fractions)

As music gets more complicated, notes can start on upbeats too. That doesn' t change their value. Remember that!!!! It only changes their starting point in the bar scale, or basically the time at which the note or drum gets struck. Understand? I have lessons later to show that so hang in there. ;-)

Below is an example of straight 16th notes with the up and down beats placed above the counting line of 1e+a.
FIG. 7


You can see that each 16th note has a "V" or "^".
The first note is a down beat, second note is an up beat, third is a downbeat and so on. Try and compare FIG. 7 and FIG. 6.


Here's an example (below) where I took out 2 16th notes at the beginning of the bar and replaced them with a single 8th note. Do your math. This still adds up to a total of 4 - 1/4 notes. Notice the counts on the top but also notice the up and down beats.

FIG.8


Try playing FIG. 6, 7 and 8 but count out loud. You have to learn to count out loud so you can HEAR the pulse of your voice. By doing so you will have an easier time noticing if you're speeding up or slowing down which both are WRONG! You want to keep at an even tempo with no variance. Counting in your head is just not enough. This is drastically important. Counting out loud will help build your timing believe me.
Do these exercises slow and try and visualize the up and down beats.

The whole idea of reading music is to be able to absorb new printed ideas faster. Learning from tapes and CD's is fine to a point but creating your own style can only be done by books and taking what you learn from those books and apply it to your needs.

["The Freq"]

Now a look at dotted notes. Are you ready? If you don't have a headache now, you will when we start this section. :-) Let's start with
FIG. 9 below.

FIG. 9


First, you'll notice that the signature is 4/4 which means the bar of music must total the value of 4 quarter notes OR one whole note.
I've included the 16th note count above along with the up and down beat "v ^". In this bar of music we have from left to right, an 8th note, a 16th note, an 8th note, a 16th note, and 8th note, an 8th note and finally, a quarter note. Now if you were to add those up they would fall short of the value needed to make the bar equal to signatures value of 4 quarter notes. Let's add it up just for fun. 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/8 + 1/16 + 1/8 + 1/8 + 1/4. Well, we have 4 - 8th notes so adding them together you get 1/2 or the equivalent of 2 1/4 notes. We see one other 1/4 note at the end of the bar so now that makes 3 quarter notes accounted for so all we're left with is one lonely 16th note. Hmmmm. We're short somewhere as we have 3 quarter notes clearly there. What happened you asked?
It's simple. There are "dotted notes and dotted notes have a bigger value. Remember earlier when I said that a dot adds half the value of the note it follows so let retry counting the notes in the bar knowing they're dotted.

First we have a "dotted 8th note. If a dot adds have the value to the note it follows, this 8th note is now valued at 3 16th notes.
Next is a single 16th note. Add 3/16 + 1/16 and you get 4/16 OR,
1/4. The next note is a dotted 8th note again followed by a 1/16th note so once again 3/16 +_1/ 16 totals 4/16 or 1/4. Add that to the first 1/4 and you now have 2/4's. We're half way there. :-) Next we have an 8th note followed by another 8th note. That's 2/8 OR , Yup,, you guessed it 1/4. Total so far? 3/4's. What's left? Well, 1/4 is left at the end on the right of the bar. Add that to the 3/4's and you have 4/4 exactly what our time signature calls for. Wasn't that easy? ;-)

Now, the look of a music note changes in different applications. Some notes have "tails". Refer to FIG. 1 at the top of the page. You will see tails on some notes curving down. Some have 2 and 3 and 4 tails. It's simple to remember. Whole notes, half notes and quarter notes don't have tails. An 8th note has a single tail, a 16th note has 2 tails, a 32nd note has 3 tails and a 64th note has 4 tails. Notes with tails change in looks only when they are joined to other notes. There values do not change. Why do they get joined? Simple, it makes a bar of music look cleaner and less busy if the tails get joined. In FIG. 9, you can see an example of tied tails on notes. Another confusing thing is that in FIG. 9, the tails of the 16th notes face the opposite way to the tails in FIG. 1. This is again to make things look neater BUT also to help group notes together. Remember FIG. 9 has a signature of 4/4? Well, you can see that reversing the tails on the 16th notes backwards to the preceding 8th notes helps define that this group of notes will most likely form a 1/4 note. Look at FIG. 10 below. I've circled the groups of notes that form each 1/4 in the bar.

FIG. 10


Now, how to play FIG. 10. First, we know it's a snare sequence because it's on the 2nd space in the bar of music. Now we have to figure out where the snare hits happen.

Here's a simple break down to help. I'll put the count down below with an "S" for the snare hits. Try and look at FIG. 10 and the broken down part below in FIG. 11 to compare.

FIG.11


Make sense? ;-)

Have you noticed in FIG. 10 that you are playing a few "up beats"?
Remember to look at the "V" symbols. You actually play 2 UP notes in the bar. I'll underline them. One is at "1 e + a and then again at "2 e + a" Dotted notes help create this combination of up and down beats.