Archive for May, 2009
Bologna International Opera Auditions by NYIOP
How To Read Music Lesson 5- Time Signatures
In previous lessons we have discussed only 4/4 time. You learned that in 4/4 time there are 4 beats to a measure and a quarter note gets 1 beat. You learned that a measure is the space between two bar lines, so if there are 4 beats to a measure there must be notes and rests between the bar lines that add up to 4 beats.
You learned that in 4/4 time a whole note gets 4 beats, a half note gets 2 beats, a quarter note gets 1 beat, an eighth note gets 1/2 beat, and a sixteenth note gets 1/4 beat. You also learned that there are rests that correspond to each note value: whole rests, half rests, quarter rests, eighth rests and sixteenth rests.
In this post you will learn about some other time signatures and how to count them. Read the rest of this entry »
How to Read Music Lesson 4 – Dotted Notes and Rests
In the previous lesson we discussed tied notes. Tied notes are a way for us to add notes together, allowing us to extend the sound of notes. In this lesson we will learn about another method of extending notes by using dot notation.
We use dot notation to extend the length of notes.
When we want to extend the length of a note, we can place a “dot” after the note to extend it. The dot increases the length of the note by one-half. This means that if you place a dot after a half note which gets two beats, then the dot adds 1 beat to the note so that a dotted half note gets 3 beats.

