subject: Understanding Whole Notes, Quarter Notes, Half Notes [print this page] Think back to elementary school music classThink back to elementary school music class. You might be able to recall learn about Ta's, Tee Tee Ta's and other such noises that didn't make a lot of sense at the time. What you were actually learning in essence was the basics of beats and notes in common 4/4 time music.
What is 4/4 Time
When you look at sheet music, especially in popular music, most of it is in what's known as common time or 4 beats per measure of music. If you could out 1, 2 ,3 and 4 in a steady manner that would be one measure of music. How quickly you count those beats doesn't matter because the beats speed is the tempo not the time.
Whole Notes
A whole note stretches an entire bar of music. So in our example there would be one note per four beats. In the example above I gave you if you held the same note for the count of four that would be a whole note. This is of course if we're in common 4/4 time the length of that whole note would change pending the number of beats per bar.
Half Notes
A half note is exactly one half of a whole note. So in one bar of music in common 4/4 time there would be two half notes each lasting two beats or half as long as the whole note.
Quarter Note
You've probably already guessed it but a quarter note is held for half the length of time as a half note or one quarter the length of time as a whole note. All of these beats related back to the whole note by dividing it up into smaller pieces. With quarter notes in common time each beat (1-2-3-4) would receive it's own note.
This is the basic outline of beats, and it keeps going as a whole note can be divided down further into eighth notes and sixteenth notes the same way we did with the half and quarter notes above.
