Reading Music: Rhythm Training

Learn to read, play, and write rhythms

Why a course about rhythm?

What you’ll learn

• How to read and play rhythms.
• Distinguish beat from rhythm.
• Discover if you are playing rhythms correctly with instant feedback from “Smart Music” software.
• Learn both “Unit” counting and “Metric” counting.
• Practice hearing rhythms and writing them down.
• Get tips for playing various rhythm patterns.
• Be able to read, play, and write multiples and subdivisions of the beat.
• Be able to read, play, and write dotted notes, rests, triplets, ties, and more.

Course Content

• What is Rhythm? –> 2 lectures • 4min.
• Multiples of the Beat –> 14 lectures • 38min.
• Subdivisions of the Beat –> 18 lectures • 39min.
• Metric Counting –> 6 lectures • 13min.
• Multiples & Subdivisions –> 7 lectures • 11min.
• Dotted Notes –> 6 lectures • 19min.
• Rests –> 6 lectures • 20min.
• Triplets –> 6 lectures • 14min.
• Ties –> 6 lectures • 15min.
• Compound Meter –> 9 lectures • 17min.

Requirements

Why a course about rhythm?

• In my 30 years of experience as a music teacher I have found that more people struggle with reading rhythm than reading pitch.
• Many courses only teach the letter names of the notes. Knowing the letter names of the notes is useless information if you don’t know how long each note should be played for.
• Isolating rhythm from pitch lets you focus your attention on mastering rhythm which is the most fundamental element of music. Once you have a solid foundation in rhythm, learning the other elements of music will be much easier and quicker.

Music is a type of language and so in this course we will learn the same way a child learns a language.

• First, they learn to speak by hearing others and imitating
• Then they learn to read the language
• And finally, they learn to write the language

Each section includes:

1. Learning a new concept.
2. Practicing the new concept through, imitating, reading, and writing.
3. An assessment in Smart Music where you will get instant feed back on your performance of various rhythms.