Rhythms with multiple beats - basic ties and dotted notes by ear

In the first exercises in this series we learned how rhythms sound when the beat is subdivided. The other way that we build rhythms around a pulse is to play single notes that span the duration of multiple beats. For instance, one note spanning the duration of two clicks.

Because we are using a quarter note to represent one beat, a two beat note is shown using a half note. It looks like a quarter note with a hollow head, and sounds like this:

When you're learning a new kind of note or figure, it can be helpful to put it into the 'context' of another rhythm you already know. Doing so lets you hear how the two sound in relation to each other.

A good context for practising a half note is two quarter notes, as it has the same duration. Listen, and clap.

Then once you've got the hang of that, try building some short rhythms mixing the different kinds of notes in different orders, such as:

Tied notes

A tie joins two notes together into a single note. Thus a pair of tied quarter notes sounds the same as a half note:

To start learning to read tied notes, let's learn some figures made by tying the different combinations of half and quarter notes.

Listen to each one of these 10 to 20 times and clap along with it while looking at the notation. If you do this for several days, you'll start to internalise the sound of the rhythm, and hear it in your mind as soon as you see the notation.

You may find it helpful to count the beats taken by the tied pair at first.

Then try putting these patterns to use in reading the following rhythm. First look over the notes and recognise the figures, then try clapping the whole rhythm.

Remember when reading a rhythm over multiple lines, to read ahead of what you're preforming, including looking down to the start of the next line.

And try making some of your own rhythms using these figures, or practice using the following tool.

Note that when a tie spans from the end of one line to the start of the following line, it overhangs both the end of the upper line and start of the lower.

Dotted notes

You may have realised that a note spanning 3 beats using ties can be written in two different ways:

Because this is so common, and to avoid ambiguities like this, there is a special notation for it. Instead of having two separate notes written with a tie, we can instead write a single half note with a dot:

Placing a dot after a note extends its duration by half of it's written length, a dotted half note thus being equivalent to 3 quarter notes, or 3 beats (as we are using the quarter note to represent one beat).

In 3/4 time, a dotted half note has the duration of one bar:

And in 4/4, the dotted note would be combined with shorter notes or rests to make up the remaining time.

Ties in practice

You may now be wandering why tied notes are used at all, when it would seem that all of the rhythms given so far could be notated with singular notes, or dotted notes.

By convention, bars always contain a fixed duration of notes as specified by the time signature, and tied notes are used in place of longer note values that would 'overflow' the bar.

For example, a quarter note can be used in 2/4 as long as it is placed on the first beat of the bar:

But if the 'half note' were to be placed on beat 2, it would 'overflow' the bar, and instead would be written as two tied quarter notes like this:

Ensuring that bars always represent consistent periods of time makes it easier to know where you are in a longer piece of music, and is especially helpful when multiple musicians are playing together.

It is not uncommon for the rhythm of melodies to cross the bar line as the groupings of a time signature can start to sound very regimented and rigid otherwise.

Here are some more examples in different time signatures. Remember that if you should struggle with any of them, just listen to the rhythm and clap along with it 10 to 20 times, and you'll start to internalise it.

Examples in 2/4 time

Examples in 4/4 time

Multiple ties can be used together to create very long notes. I'd recommend listening and clapping this one before reading it. You may also find it helpful to count the beats of the long note.

Examples in 3/4 time

Random rhythms to practice

Spend some time practising rhythms featuring quarter notes, half notes, dotted half notes, quarter rests and ties. Either make up your own rhythms, or use the following tool.

Note that I'd advise against creating rhythms that tie to 8th notes, as this will be taught in the next article in this series.