Understanding Rhythm

The Tie

by Glen Prior
The Tie is a curved line that connects two notes together. Only the first note is played, but is held for the duration of the two notes involved.

When playing instruments of short sound duration (claves, etc.), you would play the first note of the tie and forget about sustaining through the tied note.

But as a rule, the instruments that have the ability to sustain a long single tone should do so through the tie.

The tie is good for connecting notes across the bar line.

It is also used along with dotted notes to increase note values.

The tied notes equal 5 beats.

The tied notes equal 6 beats.

Notice that in the 5/8 measure, the tie is able to produce a note worth five beats, unlike the dotted note.
REPEAT MARKS:
A few signs you should be aware of: ‘

Repeat marks mean to repeat anything between these two signs one more time. If only the latter sign appears, start from the beginning of the piece.

Here, we play measures 1 and 2, then repeat them. Play measures 3 and 4, then repeat them.

To indicate repeating the measure you just played, the follow

sign if used:

Measure two is exactly the same as measure one. To repeat the two previous measures, the sign  is used.

Measures 3 and 4 are exactly the same as measures 1 and 2.

NOTE ABBREVIATIONS AND COUNTING RESTS:

One line crossing a note always implies the 8th note.
Two lines crossing implies the 16th notes.

Complete measure rests are indicated by the sign

and a number above it indicating how many measures to rest.

When counting rests, count them as follows to avoid getting lost.

Count: 1 2 3 4,  2 2 3 4,  3 2 3 4,  4 2 3 4,  5 2 3 4,
6 2 3 4,  7 2 3 4,  8 2 3 4,  9 2 3 4,  10 2 3 4

Count a repeating playing passage the same way: