Lesson 13: Eighth Notes and Sixteenth Notes
Category: Lessons
Now is probably a great time to introduce two new kinds of notes to you. The eighth note looks like a quarter note but it has a flag on it. The sixteenth note has 2 flags. The eighth note is worth a half count, and the sixteenth note is worth a quarter count. That means you can fit two eighth notes OR 4 sixteenth notes in the same amount of time that you would use to play 1 quarter note.
Take a look at the note hierarchy. In this diagram you can see that a whole note is worth the same as two half notes. A half note is worth the same as two quarter notes. A quarter note is worth the same as two eigth notes, and so on.
With all of these types of notes, it becomes difficult to understand the rhythm. There are several techniques you can use to count out the rhythm of a piece of music. We will discuss these in the next lesson.
The last thing I want to talk about is when we have more than one eighth note or sixteenth note in a row. In cases like this, instead of each individual note having a flag, the notes are joined together by bars. For eighth notes, the notes are joined together with one bar. For sixteenth notes, the notes are joined together by two bars. Take a look at the phrases below. The phrase with the flags and the phrase with the bars are equivalent even though they look different.
For more practice, check out the worksheet section.
Posted on November 15th, 2008 by sharlene
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