How long each note lasts

How long each note lasts is written in the note's shape. Time runs left to right on the staff: the note shows what to play and how long to play it.

In simple meters the top number of a time signature is beats per measure, and the bottom number is which note value gets the beat. A quarter note is 1 beat when the bottom number is 4.

Rhythm is read with the same care as pitch, or the right notes arrive at the wrong time. The symbol on the page is a note with a duration: the note shows what to play and how long to play it.

A music note duration chart, with a quarter note worth 1 beat:

Count out loud at the start. Eighth notes are "1 and 2 and", and saying the "and" is what stops them turning into quarter notes. Later the counting goes silent, but the pulse stays in the body: a foot tap, or a small movement of the arm.

Time signatures are the two numbers after the clef, and they say two things:

1. How many beats are in each measure (top number).
2. Which note value gets the beat (bottom number).

The ones you will meet most:

• 4/4: four beats per measure, quarter note gets the beat. Most pop, most classical.
• 3/4: three beats per measure (waltz feel), quarter note gets the beat.
• 2/4: two beats per measure, march-like and direct.
• 6/8: six eighth notes per measure, felt as two big beats (1 and a 2 and a).

Measures are the checkpoints when you are learning how to read music piano. A wrong note is fixed by restarting the measure it was in, not the piece. Restarting the piece is how a wrong note in bar 12 gets bars 1 to 11 practiced twenty times.

Tap and count one line before you play it. The tempo stays the same from the first bar to the last.

Two minutes of rhythm only, no keys, is enough to hear where the beats sit. Clap the rhythm of one measure, then play it. The counting goes silent later; the pulse does not.

The second phrase of Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star. Same tune, now with the lengths you just read.