Note Values (Danny Poole's Guitar Tutor Online)

Beginners Reading Sheet Music (Lesson #0014)

Note Values

How a note looks on paper will tell us how long that note is played for. As you can see below, all the notes have different duration values. It is a good idea to understand what each of these notes are called and how long they play for to understand how music is written. One of the main parts of playing the guitar is having good rhythm and understanding it well. For example, if you were to pick the thin "E" string on the guitar it would be picked on the 1st beat and stopped at the end of the 4th. You would have then picked a whole note.

In the midi/audio examples below you will hear the sound of the counts represented by the clicks, and also the sound of the notes represented by a guitar sound. Please note the quality of the sound of the guitar will depend on the quality of your sound card or keyboard module.

This is called a WHOLE NOTE it is equal to 4 BEATS.

Whole note example

Click to play MIDI externally
Press play to listen to the
timing of a Whole Note

This is called a HALF NOTE, it is equal to 2 BEATS.

Half note example

Click to play MIDI externally
Press play to listen to the
timing of a Half Note

This is called a QUARTER NOTE, it is equal to 1 BEAT.

Quarter note example

Click to play MIDI externally
Press play to listen to the
timing of a Quarter Note

This is called a EIGHTH NOTE, it is equal to HALF A BEAT or TWO EVENLY PLACED NOTES EVERY BEAT..

Eighth note example

Click to play MIDI externally
Press play to listen to the
timing of a Eighth Note

This is called a SIXTEENTH NOTE, it is equal to a QUARTER OF A BEAT or FOUR EVENLY PLACED NOTES EVERY BEAT.

Eighth & Thirty Second Note Example

Click to play MIDI externally
Press play to listen to the
timing of a Sixteenth Note

This is called a THIRTY SECOND NOTE, it is equal to an EIGHTH OF A BEAT or EIGHT EVENLY PLACED NOTES EVERY BEAT.

Click to play MIDI externally
Press play to listen to the
timing of a Thirty Second Note

The note names above are the more modern way of describing the notes. Below are some other names for the same notes. These are their more traditional names. It makes more sense to describe timing and note values as basic mathematics (eg: Whole note, Half note and Quarter note, etc) rather than a strange name that is hard to pronounce (eg: Semibreve, Minim and Crotchet, etc).

In the table below you can see the equivalent in rests values, rests are the complete opposite to note values. If a whole note is played for 4 beats, then a whole note rest is silent (no note played) for 4 beats.

Alternate Names

Below you can see the comparison between all the notes.

There are two half notes in one whole note,
There are four quarter notes in one whole note,
There are eight eighth notes in one whole note,
There are two quarter notes in one half note,
There are two eighth notes in one quarter note.

The Arrows Show How Long The Note Is Played For.
Note Table