Self-study piano basics course 3 - notes and rests -

This is a learning course for adult beginners who want to learn piano for free on their own.

In Step 3, we will learn about "notes and rests."

These are the basic knowledge needed to read music scores.

If you are learning piano for the first time, all of the terms here may seem difficult. But you don't have to try to remember them all here. You will be performing many scores from now on, so please look back on the parts you don't understand.

Let me explain in detail.

The required time is ``about 15 minutes.''

This time's theme

1. "Whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note"
2. "Full rest, half rest, quarter rest, eighth rest"
3. "Dotted"
4. "length of one beat"
5. "Let's try playing it"

note

The first lesson is about musical notes.

To describe musical notes in one word, “Please make a soundIt is a symbol that means ". In other words, if there is a note in the score, you have to press the piano key there.

Every note has length There are long and short ones, and you can judge by looking at the shape of the notes.

whole note

A "whole note" is the basic note that is the base of all notes. Draw it as a hollow ellipse as shown above. There is no "bar" at the top right of the note that you often see.

This the longest note .

When playing this note on the piano, you usually count four beats . (You'll find out why there are 4 beats later.)

half note

A "half note" is a note with a length that is equal parts of a whole note. As shown in the diagram above, it is drawn as a hollow oval, and a "bar" is usually attached to the upper right corner.

the second longest solo .

Because it is ``the length of a whole note in half,'' when playing this note on the piano, count two beats .

quarter note

A "quarter note" is the most basic musical note, and is a filled-in oval with a bar attached to it, as shown in the diagram above. It's a half note oval with the inside filled in.

As the name suggests, the length of a whole note divided into four parts . When playing this note on the piano, count by one beat .

Although the story is reversed, this note is often counted as one beat, so a whole note is usually counted as four beats.

eighth note

An "eighth note" is a filled-in oval with a stick attached and feathers, as shown in the image above. It's a quarter note with wings.

As before, it is " the length of a whole note divided into 8 parts ". When playing this note on the piano, count 0.5 beats .

When you hear 0.5 beats, you may not understand. For example, if a quarter note is 2 seconds long, an 8th note is 1 second long. It may be easier to understand by simply counting the length as half a quarter note.

So far, we have explained up to eighth notes, but there are also 16th notes, 32nd notes, 64th notes, etc., which have half the note length. But you rarely see these notes in sheet music until you play a slightly more difficult piece. Make sure to memorize up to eighth notes here.

*About eighth note beaming

There are wings on the eighth notes. These feathers take up space in the score, making phrases with consecutive eighth notes jumbled and difficult to see. To solve this problem, consecutive eighth notes (and subsequent notes) are connected using something called a beam, as shown in the diagram below.

When the notes are connected by a single line like this, it becomes an eighth note. Make sure to memorize the notes so you don't get confused when you look at the sheet music.

rest

Next is a lesson about "rests."

A rest is the opposite of a note.Don't make any noise hereIt is a symbol that means ". If a rest appears even though you've been playing up to that point, you need to pull back on the piano key to stop the sound from coming out.

Just like musical notes, rests have a fixed length, and there are long and short rests. Let's take a look at some typical ones.

whole rest

is written as a square rectangle attached to the bottom of the horizontal line, as shown in the image above The horizontal line here refers to the horizontal line of the musical score.

This the longest rest .

When this rest appears, stop playing the 4-beat

half rest

A "half rest" is written as a square rectangle attached to Again, the horizontal lines are the lines on the musical score.

It is very similar to a whole note, but the content is different, so be sure to remember it.

This the second longest rest in .

It is "the length of a whole rest in half", and when this rest appears, the piano performance will take a two-beat break .

quarter rest

A "quarter rest" is the most commonly used basic rest, just like a quarter note. As shown in the image above, it looks like the letter C written diagonally below the lightning mark.

Unless you are composing or arranging it, you won't ``write'' it on the sheet music, so just remember that ``this shape is a quarter note'' and you'll be fine. It's okay to treat them like ``kanji that you can read but can't write.''

As the name suggests, it is a rest with the length of a whole rest divided into four parts When this rest appears, take a break from playing on the piano for one beat .

eighth rest

An "eighth rest" is shaped like a modified number 7, as shown in the image above.

As before, this is a rest with the length of a whole rest divided into 8 parts When this rest appears, take a 0.5 beat break .

Dotted

A dot is a black dot at the bottom right of a note or rest, as shown in the image above.

When a dot is added, the length of that note or rest is1.5 timesIt will be. For example, if you add a dot to a quarter note as shown in the diagram above, it becomes "1 beat x 1.5 = 1.5 beats", so the length is exactly the same as the quarter note and eighth note combined.

By the way, a dotted note is called a "dotted 〇〇 note (rest)," and in the above figure, it is called a "dotted quarter note" or "dotted quarter rest."

Dotted notes and rests of intermediate length often appear in musical scores unexpectedly. Be sure to remember this.

length of one beat

I've learned many notes and rests so far, but I've always expressed their length in terms of beats.

This begs the question, "How many seconds is a beat?"

To determine this specifically, a metronome mark is written at the beginning of the score, as shown in the image below.

This determines the number of notes played in one minute

For example, if you write "quarter note = 60" as shown in the diagram above, it means Please play a quarter note 60 times in 1 minute (60 seconds)

In other words, the length of a quarter note is 1 second. If you understand this, a whole note in a musical score will take 4 seconds, a half note will take 2 seconds, and an eighth note will take 0.5 seconds.

Metronome markings are not limited to quarter notes. Let's take a look at the following image.

, it means "please play an eighth note in one minute

In other words, one eighth note takes about 0.3 seconds, and one quarter note takes 0.6 to 0.7 seconds.

As you can see, there are no fixed types of notes, so be careful not to make judgments just by looking at the numbers.

Let's actually practice

So far, we have learned about "notes" and "rests."

Let's use them to play the following exercises.

It is created using simple sound sequences without using difficult techniques.

Practice ①

This time, it doesn't matter if you use your right or left hand. Let's play C continuously.

Practice ②

The next one is a little more difficult.

This is a slight arrangement of one of the phrases from the nursery rhyme ``Poppo~ no Uta''.

Use the finger numbers you learned in step 2 to play the notes at the correct length.

If you can play up to this point, step 3 is cleared.

Summary of this lesson

1. "note"
   • ・Musical notes are symbols used to make sounds
   • ・4 beats for a whole note
   • ・A half note is half the length of a whole note, and has 2 beats.
   • ・A quarter note is one-fourth the length of a whole note, half the length of a half note, and one beat.
2. "rest"
   • ・A rest is a symbol used where you should not make a sound.
   • - Rests and whole notes have 4 beats, just like musical notes.
3. "Metronome symbol"
   • ・Represents the number of times a note is played per minute

Basic piano course

• Step 1: How to play correctly
• Step 2: Note names and keyboard positions
• Step 3: Notes and rests
• Step 4: Sheet music and clefs
• Step 5: Measures and slurs