The Value of a Note? And Pizza!

So for the past few weeks we have been talking about
What is a Time Signature? read here
Explaining Different Time Signatures read here

Now that we are brilliant and we know all of that? We can have even More Fun and talk about Note Values. This doesn't mean that some notes are more valuable than others! Instead, a note value refers to the duration of a note - the length of time we play the note (same as the length of time we hear the note) This has nothing to do with pitch. This is all about knowing How long to play each note when it appears in sheet music or charts.

Let's start with looking at a Pizza (because that is one of my favorite foods) Stick with me here if you want the trick on how Pizza can help you to read music!

So we have a circle - it looks like a pizza!


Let's say... if we cut the pizza into four pieces

The WHOLE Pizza will feed 4 people
HALF of the pizza will feed 2 people
A QUARTER of the pizza will feed 1 person
An EIGHTH of the pizza will feed the family dog
(he's tiny and shouldn't be eating pizza anyway!)

A WHOLE NOTE has 4 beats The Whole Pizza feeds 4 people
we count it as 1,2,3,4

A HALF NOTE has 2 beats Half of a Pizza feeds 2 people
we count it as 1,2

A QUARTER NOTE has 1 beat One Quarter of a Pizza feeds 1 person
we count it as 1 or 1 AND

AN EIGHTH NOTE is half of one beat
Logical for the dog to eat Half as much pizza as one person
2 eighth notes count as 1 AND - the same length as One quarter note
1 eighth note counts as Either One or And - the length of Half of a quarter note

Also,
A Whole note looks like a circle or a pizza :)
A Half note looks like half a pizza
A Quarter note is the same as a half note but filled in
An Eighth note looks like a Quarter note, but with a tail
(remember I said it feeds the dog, well that's also because it has a tail!!)

picture courtesy of start-playing-guitar.com

And I didn't mention a 16th note - which has the duration of half of an 8th note
(it's such a small piece of pizza it might only feed a mouse Note the 16th it has a 2 tiny tails)

Another perspective brings us back to math class, but I'll bring it on just to make sure all bases are covered

There is a relationship between the notes
As we multiply by 2 - the duration of the note gets cut in half

1 Whole
multiply by 2
1/2 Half
multiply by 2
1/4 Quarter
multiply by 2
1/8
multiply by 2
1/16
multiply by 2
(some music gets as fast as 32nd or 64th notes! but you get the point)


I personally think Pizza is More Fun!
Next week we will delve into fabulous music examples so that we can hear these notes in action -
Til Then
Love and Music
Meredith