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All notes have a duration in time,
but in western musical notation,

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the duration is expressed as fractions or
multiples of a beat,

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rather than as a duration in seconds.

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Beats are related to or
even synonymous with pulse.

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And they're clearly related to tempo,

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which is often expressed
as beats per minute.

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Rhythm then concerns multiples or
subdivisions of beats.

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It can be expressed symbolically
in western notation

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in the form of both rests and notes.

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So for instance,

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all of our western rhythmic durations
are related to the whole note,

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as it's called in America, or
the semibreve, as it's called in Britain.

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Semibreve represents the full
duration of one bar in 4/4 meter.

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We'll come to meter in a little while, but

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suffice to say, 4/4 is the most
common meter that we come across.

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The semibreve can,
of course, be subdivided and

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these subdivision have different names.

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In British nomenclature, for example, we
speak of minims, crotchets, quavers, etc.

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There are two minims per semibreve.

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This is also known as the half
note in American parlance.

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This is then subdivided
into two crotchets,

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crotchets are quarter notes in the US and

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there are four quarter notes in a whole
note, or a semibreve as you might imagine.

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Crotchets are then further divided
into quavers, eighth notes, and

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on into semiquavers, 16th notes,
and so on and so forth.

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So if you use the American nomenclature,
which is derived from the German,

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by the way, it's very easy to see how
many of a particular rhythm you'll

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have in a whole note, as all rhythms
are expressed in relation to this.

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So let's just recap here and look at
the actual notation of these rhythms.

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First of all,

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we've got the open round note symbol,
which is the semibreve or whole note.

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This is four beats long in common time,
or 4/4 meter.

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Again, more on this later.

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Then we've got the half note, or
minim, the crotchet, the quaver,

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and the semiquaver.

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[MUSIC]

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We also have the equivalent
rhythms in rests.

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Rests are necessary to indicate where
a musician stops playing notes.

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Most music consists of notes surrounded
by space, of course, otherwise musicians

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would never get the chance to breathe or
rest, and neither would the music.

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So first of all, again, the semibreve or
whole note rest, the minim or

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half note rest, the crotchet or
quarter note rest, the quaver,

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eighth note rest, and the semiquaver,
or sixteenth note rest.

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You can see that the quaver and

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semiquaver notes are essentially crotchets
with little flags on their stems.

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Each flag that you add
divides the rhythm by two.

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So we could further divide
semiquavers into demisemiquavers or

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32nd notes in American parlance.

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And these can be further subdivided
into hemdemisemiquavers or 64th notes,

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etc., etc.

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Now those flags, which we've seen
on the quavers of lesser durations,

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can actually turn into what we call beams.

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We use beams so that we can group
notes in twos, fours, eights, etc.

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And thereby easily see a beat's worth,
or sometimes more, of shorter notes.

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This makes it easier to orientate
ourselves in the flow of the music, so

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we can recognize where
the beat boundaries are.

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Here's another example.

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You can see that the number of flags
which we use in the individual notes

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is reflected in the number
of horizontal beams.

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And that adding one more beam is
equivalent to adding one more flag,

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that is,
we're subdividing the rhythm into two.

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[MUSIC]