You can play every note right and still sound wrong if the timing is off. Rhythm is the skeleton music hangs on — and it's more learnable than most beginners realize. This page covers how rhythm is counted, written, and felt.
Every note value is a fraction of a whole note. Halve the duration, double the number of notes per beat.
| Note | Beats (in 4/4) | Count |
|---|---|---|
| Whole note | 4 | 1 — — — |
| Half note | 2 | 1 — 3 — |
| Quarter note | 1 | 1 2 3 4 |
| Eighth note | ½ | 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & |
| Sixteenth note | ¼ | 1 e & a 2 e & a … |
A rest is a silence of the same durations — a quarter rest lasts one beat of silence. A dot after a note adds half its value again (a dotted half note = 3 beats). A tie joins two notes into one longer sustained note.
Press play to hear each subdivision at 80 bpm. Count out loud with it — saying the counts is what locks timing into your body.
The two numbers at the start of a piece: the top says how many beats per bar, the bottom says what kind of note gets one beat (4 = quarter note).
| Signature | Feel | Count | Common in |
|---|---|---|---|
| 4/4 | Steady, "common time" | 1 2 3 4 | most pop, rock, folk — the default |
| 3/4 | Waltz, swaying | 1 2 3 | waltzes, many ballads |
| 6/8 | Rolling, in two groups of 3 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 | ballads, Irish jigs, "House of the Rising Sun" |
| 2/4 | March, marching feel | 1 2 | marches, polkas |
| 5/4, 7/8 | Odd, off-kilter | 1 2 3 4 5 … | prog rock, jazz, "Take Five" |
Straight eighths divide the beat evenly. Swing (or shuffle) stretches the first eighth and shortens the second, giving that "long-short, long-short" bounce heard in blues, jazz, and rock and roll.
Accenting the off-beats — the "&" between the numbers — instead of the main beats. It's what makes funk, reggae, and most modern pop feel like they push and pull rather than march. Reggae famously emphasizes beats 2 and 4 and the upstrokes.
Always. Counting externally forces your internal clock to line up with the beat instead of drifting.
The metronome tool is on the tools page. Start slow enough to be perfect, then speed up gradually.
Clap or tap a rhythm before adding the guitar. Separating rhythm from fretting makes both easier.