Don't Let Eighth Notes Scare You

Eighth notes are all around us.

We do so many things in 2's. We breathe in.... we breathe out. We take 1 step forward... we step again to catch up.

What goes up, comes back down. For every action, there is a reaction.

Music has downbeats & upbeats. For every 1 beat, you can split it into two.

Actually, you can take one beat and divide it into 8ths, 16ths, even 32nds and 64ths. Whooaa!.. Not yet.

Our lesson here is eighth notes, but when you understand the math, you'll be ready for more.

Every musical "beat" can be evenly split into 2 parts.

Let's take a lesson from an old-fashioned clock. Digital ones won't help.

When you hear a clock doing it's thing:

Tick         Tick         Tick         Tick

The clock is dividing the "time" into 60 Beats Per Minute, or BPMs.

Some clocks have a second hand that makes 1 additional sound directly between each tick. This is a great example of 8th notes.

Tick         Tick         Tick          Tick

        Tock        Tock         Tock        Tock

We went from 4 sounds (QUARTERS), to twice as many, or 8 sounds (EIGHTHS).

That's why I call it "Music Math." The notes are all related to each other, just like fractions or percentages are.

Truthfully, most experienced musicians don't have to think about what they play... they just play. But when they were getting started, learning notes, and their feel, is a big part of the drill.

Note rhythms are part of our musical vocabulary.

Now you will start noticing rhythmic patterns everywhere in everyday life.

Next we look at
triplets. (Then you will move on to sixteenth notes .)

All of the different types of notes are what makes melodies colorful, and the rhythm come alive. So let's feel that groove! : )