Playing, Part 1
Chapter 6: More Notation and Rhythms
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Expand your rhythmic vocabulary — eighth, dotted, tied, triplet, and sixteenth notes, swing versus straight feel, and the rests that go with them.
Introducing Eighth Notes
Meet the eighth note, lasting half a beat, and learn how flags and beams notate it whether it stands alone or joins its neighbors.
Introducing Dotted Notes
Add a dot after a note to extend its length by half again, turning half notes into three-beat values and quarter notes into one-and-a-half.
Introducing Tied Notes
Discover how a tie links two same-pitch notes into one sustained sound, letting a note ring across the barline when beats run short.
“Straight Eighths” vs. “Swing Eighths”
Drop the middle note of each triplet to hear where swing eighths come from, and learn why the "&" lands later than in straight rhythms.
Introducing Sixteenth Notes
Learn the sixteenth note, worth a quarter of a beat, along with its double flags and beams and the new "e & a" counting that divides each beat into four.
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Note finder
Pick a note and see every place it sits on the piano keyboard, named — and tap any key to hear it.
Note reading trainer
Practice reading the treble, alto or bass staff: a note appears, you click it on the piano. Instant feedback, the note plays, your score tracks.
Accidental calculator
Pick a key and a note letter and it tells you the sharp, flat, or natural that letter carries in that key, spells the note, and shows it on the staff.
Tap tempo (BPM tapper)
Tap the button or the space bar in time with any music and it reads the tempo back in BPM, with a matching tempo marking.
Metronome
Set the tempo and time signature and practice in steady time, or open the Pro tab for subdivisions, per-beat accents, a speed trainer, a gap trainer, click sounds, and recording yourself under the click — all free, right in your browser.
Virtual piano
Play a piano in your browser — use your mouse, touch, or computer keyboard. Real piano sound, and a free Pro tab with up to 61 keys, sustain, MIDI keyboard input, a metronome, and recording.