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Appendix A: How to Read Music
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Reading duration
A note’s shape helps tell how long you need to hold it. Notes can have a
hollow notehead (as in the case of the whole note and half note) or a solid
notehead (quarter notes, eighth notes, and sixteenth notes), and the solid
noteheads can even have vertical lines (called stems) with flags (curly lines)
dangling off them. If you join together two or more notes, beams (horizontal
lines between the stems) replace the flags. Table A-2 refers to the symbols
numbered from 7 to 19 in Figure A-1.
Table A-2
Number in What It’s What It Means
Figure A-1 Called
Duration Symbols and Their Meanings
7 Whole note The longest note is the whole note, which has a
hollow oval head with no stem.
8 Half note The half note has a hollow oval head with a stem. It
lasts half as long as the whole note.
9 Quarter note The quarter note has a solid oval head with a stem. It
lasts half as long as the half note.
10 Eighth note The eighth note has a solid oval head with a stem and
a flag or beam. It lasts half as long as a quarter note.
11 Sixteenth The sixteenth note has a solid oval head with a stem
note and either two flags or two beams. It lasts half as long
as the eighth note.
12 Rest Music consists not only of notes, but of silences, too.
What makes music interesting is how the notes and
silences interact. Silences in music are indicated
by rests. The rest in Figure A-1 is a quarter rest, equal
in duration to a quarter note. Other rests, also equal
in duration to their corresponding notes, are the
whole rest (W), half rest (H), eighth rest (E) and sixteenth
rest (X).
13 Tempo The tempo heading tells you how fast or slow the
heading song’s beat, or pulse, is. As you listen to music, you
(usually) hear an immediately recognizable beat. The
beat is what you tap your foot or snap your fingers to.
(continued)
TEAM LinG