READING MUSIC / LESSON 03
Note Values and Types of Notes
Welcome to the third lesson in our music-reading series. This time, we will explore the different kinds of notes and how long each one lasts. Six note values are especially common.
Notice how the note symbols change. Their shapes tell us their relative durations. As the number in the note value increases—from a half note to a quarter note, for example—the duration becomes shorter.
The values follow a simple pattern of halving: a half note lasts half as long as a whole note; a quarter note lasts one quarter as long; an eighth note, one eighth; and a sixteenth note, one sixteenth.
Here are the names of the parts of a note:
As notes become shorter, their appearance changes in stages:
Add a stem to the open notehead.
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Fill in the notehead.
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Add flags to the stem (or beams when notes are grouped).
The next example also shows how sixteenth and thirty-second notes relate to a whole note.
1. Six basic note values are commonly used.
2. Larger denominators represent shorter durations.
3. Every value is a fraction of the whole note.