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In kindergarten and early primary school, children are taught scales as having steps and half-steps, or tones and semitones (T and S). This naming conveys that between one scale note and the next is always “one” something (tone or semitone, step or half step), indicating that these notes are consecutive in the scale despite their different size.
This is great for very young minds but doesn’t reflect how intervals are measured and described in general use.
The smallest unit of musical pitch (in Western culture) is 1 semitone. The semitone is a basic unit, like a millimetre. (Smaller units exist but they measure expression such as vibrato or micro-tuning rather than musical notes). Larger intervals are measured in semitones, not tones and semitones. We say an octave is 12 semitones, not 6 tones or 5 tones and 2 semitones.
(Personally I find that calling 2 semitones a tone is confusing, given that a “tone” is also the American name for a note as well as a word for timbre.)
I never refer to “tones” as an interval size in any of my writing. For scales, I write 2 or 1 (semitones) instead of T or S.
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This post is one of a 2-part series of free basic music theory lessons on my blog, musictheoryde-mystified.com. You can see the complete list here. Please feel welcome to make a comment or ask a question.
Beats and note length
Music is made up of notes and rests of varying length. The musical unit of note length is the beat.
Beats
The duration of a note or rest isn’t written in absolute time: we don’t say a note is 3 seconds or half a second long. Instead, we say it is 3 beats long or half a beat long. We use symbols to indicate the length of a note as a number of beats or a fraction of a beat. For more on the symbols for note length, please see 5. How Long Is A Note? Note Values 1
Tempo
How long a beat lasts depends on the tempo. Think of a clock that doesn’t just tick every second, but that has a dial that lets you set the tick to any speed you like (this actually exists, both as a mechanical ticker and as an app: it’s called a metronome). The speed of the ticking is the tempo. Tempo is measured in beats per minute or bpm.
Each tick represents the start of one beat, so a note that is one beat long and starts on a tick will last until the next tick.
Timing
Notes can start on a beat or between beats. The relationship between the actual notes of a part and the tempo is called timing. Being able to accurately play the note lengths in relation to the tempo is called playing in time.
Timing is also the basis of how musicians can play together in a co-ordinated way. Large ensembles often use a conductor for this purpose. The conductor acts as a human metronome, using gestures to indicate the beats and thus control the tempo.
The tempo of a song is often constant, especially in many modern genres, but it is also possible for the tempo to change within a piece.
Counting the beat
The standard metronome has a range of 40-208 bpm, which roughly parallels the range of human heart rates. This represents our range of experience of what feels like a beat. For example, try counting “1, 2, 3, 4” or “1, 2, 3” along to metronome ticks of various tempi.
Slower than about 40 bpm we can’t “join the dots”; we don’t feel the link from one beat to the next clearly enough to be able to count steadily and we’re tempted to insert the word “and” between counts: of course, this effectively doubles our counting speed, even though we’re using a different word.
Faster than about 200 bpm it becomes hard to feel each count as a proper beat: more like a half-beat: and we want to count every 2nd beat instead.
Some music isn’t played in any set tempo, but a kind of flexi-time. This is formally called rubato but the English word freely can be used instead if you prefer. Rubato is prominent in operatic arias and other “story-telling” genres such as ballads.
Musicianship: the bridge between theory and practice
Often music is thought of as two subjects, theory and practical: the reading and understanding of musical language and learning to play an instrument. There is an important third element called musicianship. Think of musicianship as practical theory, general musical skills independent of the instrument you play.
One aspect of musicianship is timing. Aspiring musicians need to master some basic skills such as being able to play to an external beat, be it from a metronome or other players. Some people have a natural ability to feel the beat, while others need some exercises to develop this ability.
Basic timing practice
The following examples use two note symbols. The first is called a crotchet or quarter note: here it represents a length of 1 beat. The second is called a quaver or eighth note and represents half a beat. More on note length in a later post.
I have already mentioned the first step, the ability to count or play a note steadily to a beat at various tempi. Try counting “1, 2” first, then playing. You can play any note: often it’s easier to play two different notes, depending on your instrument.
If you had trouble counting to the beat as above, practice at a medium tempo such as 90bpm first as it’s neither too slow to feel nor too fast to play.
TIP: Listen to the metronome first before starting to count or play. Let yourself feel the tempo for as long as you like: it’ll be much easier to play in time.
A variation of the above exercise is to tap your foot at a set tempo and play together with your taps.
The next step is to be able to divide a beat into halves. It may help to use the word “and”, at least mentally, to mark the half beats. This makes it feel like you’re counting twice as often, which is certainly easier for slower tempi. The trick is to make sure the halves occur exactly halfway between the beats: at first, they may be uneven. Try playing along to the example below.
Gradually increase the tempo until you can play quite fast.
Once you can play steadily every half beat at a faster tempo such as 120bpm as above, try leaving out the “and”s in your count.
It may take a little while to be able to keep up the steady rhythm of even halves. The more you practice, the more stamina you develop and the longer you can keep the halves even. After a while you’ll wonder how it could ever have been difficult…
Other simple rhythms are also worth learning, such as alternating a whole beat and two half beats or playing only the off-beat halves (the “ands”). This latter is the basis of syncopation (more on this in another post). It’s also worth learning to divide a beat into uneven pairs, long then short, called swing or swung eighths. Effectively, the long note is 2/3 of a beat and the short note, 1/3 of a beat. Another good exercise is to divide the beat into thirds, 3 equal parts.
The above exercises form the basis of many common rhythms.
More timing practice
Playing in time is one of the critical skills required when playing in an ensemble, whether a duo, band, choir or orchestra. Complete musicianship teaching methods are available, covering timing, rhythm, pitching intervals and more.
In my upcoming music theory book, Music Theory De-mystified, I have included two chapters on musicianship. The timing exercises above are taken from one of these chapters. The other chapter is about learning to recognise intervals (the pitch relationship between two notes) by being able to sing or play them.
This post is one of a growing series of free basic music theory lessons on my blog, musictheoryde-mystified.com. You can see the complete list here.
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Substantial parts of this post, including the movies above, are taken from Music Theory De-mystified, my upcoming music theory e-book, due to be released late 2023.
