Beginners Music Theory/Elements of Rhythm

Elements of rhythm
Rhythm is a general term that refers to the time aspect of music. The duration of each note is determined by the note head and stem. The note head is the round part of the note and it can by filled in or hollow. The stem is the vertical line which stems from the note head. All notes have both of these parts with the exception of the whole note and the breve.

Beat is the basic pulse of music. This can be found by tapping one's foot to music; the beat falls in line with the foot hitting the floor. The rate at which beats occur is called tempo. The time signature of music indicates the number of beats that will occur in each measure and what note value will represent the beat. This is expressed with two vertically stacked numbers with the number on top indicating the number of beats per measure and the number on bottom indicating what note value represents the beat.

The whole note is so named because in the most common time signature, one whole note lasts the entire measure. All other note values are named for the fraction of a whole note that they represent. Therefore, a whole note lasts twice as long as a half note and a half note lasts twice as long as a quarter note.

An easy way to learn which bottom number of a time signature represents which note values is to think of the number as a division of the whole note. In 4/4, the bottom number is 4, which means that 4 of that note fit inside of a whole note. 4 quarter notes go into a whole note, so in 4/4 the beat unit must be quarter notes.

Dotting and Double-Dotting Dots after rests increase their time-value in the same way as dots after notes.

Triplets
It is also possible to divide a note into 3 equal parts rather than 2 equal parts. A quarter note can be divided into 2 eighth notes (where each eighth note is half as long as the quarter note), but it can also be divided into 3 eighth note triplets (where each eighth note is a third as long as the quarter note). In order to notate this, a 3 is placed on the beam of the triplets to indicate that this is a grouping of 3. Both 2 eighth notes and 3 eighth note triplets take up the same amount of time, 1 quarter note. This triplet division can be done with other note values as well, a half note can either be split into 2 quarter notes or 3 quarter note triplets (in the absence of a beam, a bracket is placed over the 3 quarter note triplets with a "3" on it to indicate that it is a triplet). It's important to remember that creating triplets is dividing the note the same way it would divide in two, so you always notate a triplet as a subdivision of the note (a half note isn't split into 3 half-note triplets, it's split into 3 quarter note triplets, and those 3 triplets combined are as long as a half note).