LESSON 3: counting eighth notes

In this next lesson you will learn how to count eighth notes within a 4/4 time. Also, you will learn how quarter notes and eighth notes relate so that you can understand how sub-divisions work. This will help you build a solid foundation in which to grow on. Before you go through this lesson, however, make sure you fully understand the one before on quarter notes. It is very important that you fully understand all this before moving on to the other theory and notation lessons.

Eighth notes are sub-divisions of quarter notes. This means, there are eight of them in a measure of 4/4 time. The first example show a measure of eighth notes with the counts on top of each note. If you have a metronome, set it to 80 BPM and count this measure like this: one, and, two, and, three, and, four, and (then, re-start at one). Look at and remember, how the eighth notes have a horizontal line connecting the to the quarter notes in groups. You should be able to distinguish between a quarter note and an eighth note.

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The second diagram shows a measure of quarter notes leading up to a measure of eighth notes. This exercise is pretty important because it shows you how to go from one sub-division of time to the other.

The counts one, two three, four to remain consistent through both of the measures. Then, for the second measure the 'and' counts simple get added into double the speed of those notes. So, this way you can play double the speed while still maintaining consistent time.

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The third diagram mixes quarter and eighth notes into four measures. As you can see, the bottom two lines have notes in different vertical positions. This simply indicates the different drum sounds across a drum set; however, they are still quarter and eighth notes.

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If you have a metronome, set it to 80 BPM and count it like this: one, two, three, and, four, and, one, two, three, four, and, one, and two, and three, and four, one, and, two, and, three, four, and (then, repeat from the start again). It is not necessary to be able to play this on the drum set. It is simply placed in this order so that you can really understand that no matter where in the measure and on the line a note is, you should be able to count and identify the timing and beat.

Now, if you have any questions, please feel free to comment and ask. If you understand all of the above and can do this exercise seamlessly you are ready to move on to the next lesson.

LESSON 2: counting quarter notes

This lesson is going to teach you to count quarter notes in 4/4 time. This is the basics, the foundation, to learning the eighth notes, eighth note triplets, sixteenth notes, sixteenth note triplets, and 32nd notes.

Now starting at the first exercise of sheet music, there are four quarter notes in one measure. So, each quarter note is taking 1/4 or one quarter of the measure. The counts are on the top of each note. So, you just count : one, two, three, four (and then going back again to one at the end of the measure).




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The second diagram has two measures of quarter notes. You can tell a measure apart by the vertical line which shows you where it begins and ends. Counting these quarter notes are as simple as counting one, two, three, four out loud and then restarting at each measure, as i mentioned above. Now, for this next example you would count both measures as: one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four.




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The third exercise has got four measures of quarter notes. This is almost the same as the other exercises, only that the notes are indicating the various drum set sounds. As I explained in lesson one, the notes in there various vertical places represent the different sounds (parts) of a drum kit.

Even though these notes are placed differently on the staff, they are still quarter notes. A quarter note is a solid note (meaning one in which the circle in the middle is filled) in the measure with a single stem (line) coming up from it.  

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Go over this a couple times until it all makes sense to you, until you FULLY understand it. The next lesson will incorporate quarter and eighth notes to help you to count and get used to both.

A Staff and Stave

Now, I know for most musicians this is common knowledge, but here's a little bit of the basics you must know. The diagram of lines and spaces below is called a stave. A stave has got five horizontal lines and four spaces used in musical notation. In between each line is a gap called a space. Most music notes are oval shaped symbols that are placed on the lines and in the space. However, in drum notation we will come across a lot more symbols.

                                                     



           

Example of a stave with notes on the lines and in the spaces