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Rhythm Reading
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Lesson 27 Dotted half note and rest

  • Practice
  • 4/4
  • 66 bpm
  • 8 bars
  • 11 claps
66 bpm

About this exercise

The dotted half note and the quarter rest share the 4/4 bar: three beats of hands together and one of hands open, or the other way round. There are only 11 claps in 8 bars, so the exercise is almost all counting inside.

The difference between holding and stopping is the heart of the lesson: on the dotted half note your hands stay together, on the rest they stay open. Bar 2 starts in silence, with the long note coming in on beat 2. Say "1" quietly and clap firmly on 2.

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How to play it

  1. Count-in: the site counts 1 bar before starting ("1 2 3 4"). Clap the first note on beat 1 of bar 1.
  2. Reading: read the line on the yellow strip and look ahead to the next one: that's how you read ahead.
  3. Hands together: on notes longer than 1 beat (dotted half note and whole note) clap and keep your hands together until the end of the note: hands together = the sound keeps going.
  4. Rests: hands open, no clapping, and keep counting in silence.
  5. Eighth notes: count "1 & 2 &"; the "&" falls exactly in the middle of the beat.

How to practice

  1. Say the count out loud, without clapping, looking at the Bar by bar table.
  2. In Together mode, count and clap at the same time as the character.
  3. In Your turn mode, clap on your own. If it's hard, slow down and then come back.

Goal: ★★★ three times in a row at 66 bpm. Then the lesson is completed.

The full practice method →

Bar by bar

Bold = clap · (n) = don't clap, the sound keeps going (hands together) · [n] = rest, hands open.

Bar Notes Count
1 dotted half note, quarter rest 1 (2) (3) [4]
2 quarter rest, dotted half note [1] 2 (3) (4)
3 dotted half note, quarter rest 1 (2) (3) [4]
4 whole note 1 (2) (3) (4)
5 quarter note, dotted half note 1 2 (3) (4)
6 dotted half note, quarter rest 1 (2) (3) [4]
7 2 eighth notes, dotted half note 1 & 2 (3) (4)
8 whole note 1 (2) (3) (4)

Notes used: whole note, dotted half note, quarter note, eighth note, quarter rest.