Dividing the beat

▶ Open in Aratu to hear the examples, change them and do the exercises

So far every beat had one symbol, a quarter note. But music divides beats: two eighths, four sixteenths, triplets. In Aratu that takes one rule.

The second rule: symbols together share the beat

Symbols written together, with no space, divide the beat into equal parts.

Listen to the beat dividing more and more, from 1 to 4:

tempo: 80
hh = c cc ccc cccc

Look at the grid: beat 2 has two symbols, beat 3 three, beat 4 four, all evenly spaced.

The third rule: _ holds, - rests

Inside a beat, _ makes the sound before it last one more part, and - is a part of silence. These two pieces write the most common rhythms:

The dot is a shorthand: c.c is the same as c__c, the dotted eighth.

tempo: 80
hh = ccc_ cc_c c_cc c.c

A _ alone in a beat holds the whole beat: c _ is a half note and c _ _ _ a whole note.

Across beats

A number before the brackets stretches the group over more beats: 2[c c c] is three even hits in two beats, quarter-note triplets. The lesson on compound meters comes back to this, slowly.

tempo: 80
hh = 2[c c c] c c

Exercises

Make the hi-hat play eighths for the whole bar.

hh = c c c c

hh = cc cc cc cc

Quarters on beats 1 and 3, sixteenths on beats 2 and 4.

hh = c c c c

hh = c cccc c cccc

A dotted eighth and a sixteenth on every beat: the "galloping" rhythm.

hh = cc cc cc cc

hh = c.c c.c c.c c.c

Hear the goal before you write. Singing the rhythm ("taaa-ta, taaa-ta") helps you find how to write it.