Quarter Notes

Quarter notes are a way of describing timing of music. This is essential for learning how timing works on guitar. This lesson focuses on how to keep a steady rhythm and play guitar in time. The quarter note is based on the idea that you split a bar of music, which is music speak for a section, into 4. So you will often see timing written as 4:4 or 3:4. The first number tells you how many beats in a bar (section) – for beats think of how many times you would tap your foot to the music. Most rock music has 4 beats per bar. 1, 2, 3, 4. The bottom number tells you how long to play the note – a 4 is a quarter note. This whole concept takes a while to wrap you head around so don’t worry if its a bit fuzzy to start. The thing to remember is that we are playing a note for each tap of the foot – that’s a quarter note. You can continue on with timings with these lessons: https://7minutemusic.com/time/level-2/beats-per-minute/ https://7minutemusic.com/time/level-2/1-8-notes/ https://7minutemusic.com/time/level-3/1-16-notes/ That should help you get your head around what I think is the hardest part of playing music. People don’t reward you for having good timing but they will definitely punish you for having bad timing. Practice with a metronome – a lot!