This video lesson introduces Rest Notes and how to count them. Rest notes are basically like a pause in between beats. They’re counted pretty much the same way as you’d count note values that are relative to each other. Knowing how to count is also one of the most important aspects to reading and understanding the music.
This video will teach you how to read rest notes and how to count them, but you should already have the basic concept of counting mastered. You’ll also learn how to count at a certain pace whether it’s fast or slow.
The speed of learning this all depends on each individual’s ability to learn, and it’s advised to have some patience when it comes to learning new concepts.
Rest Notes Pyramid
The Rest Notes Pyramid is a useful visual tool to further understand how rest notes can multiply starting with the Whole Note and ending with 16th Notes.
Rhythms Review
Here are some examples of rhythms with rest notes in them. As you can see, even with the rest notes the counts below them remain relative to however many counts a rest note takes up.
Rhythm #1
Rhythm #2
Rhythm #3
Rhythm #4
Practice!
Below are a few music reading exercises based on what you learned from the video. The goal of these exercises is to put what you learned in practical use. The first 2 will have the counts below the notes to aid you with the shifting rhythms, and the last one will have no counts below the notes. Once you can make it through these exercises and are comfortable enough, go ahead and move on to the next lesson.