Rhythm game: note values, rests and time signatures
A music game for mastering rhythm with the notes drawn on the staff. A semibreve, minim, crotchet, quaver or semiquaver (with or without a dot) or a rest appears, and there are no options: you match each note to its name or tap on a four-beat ruler where it ends, with the crotchet as one beat. Other rounds are 2/4, 3/4 or 4/4 bars with a gap that you fill with notes from the palette until the bar adds up exactly. And with the time signature shown, you tap where the bar line between two bars goes.
Music · Primary, Secondary
Hollow or filled head, with or without a stem, one or two flags: each detail changes the length. Seeing it drawn again and again, as in a score, is what makes the note recognisable without thinking.
Completing a bar is a sum with fractions: two quavers make a crotchet, a dotted minim lasts three beats. When you answer, the explanation does the sum (what is there, what is missing) so the student sees why.
A rest lasts as long as its note, and counts the same in a bar. That is why bars mix notes and rests, and the semibreve rest (hanging) and the minim rest (sitting) both appear so they are not confused.
"A 3/4 bar appears with a crotchet, two quavers and a gap. A 3/4 bar has three beats; the crotchet is one and the two quavers half each, so there are two beats and one is missing: you put in a crotchet (or two quavers, which add up to the same). A minim, worth two, would be too long."
Prefer to learn without screens? Try this analogue version:
Draw four empty 4/4 bars on a sheet of paper.
Fill them with notes and rests until each adds up to four beats.
Clap once for each note and count the rests silently, tapping the beat with your foot.
Change one bar to 3/4 and check which notes you need to remove.
If you like Full Bar, these activities work similar skills:
Read the notes on the staff and play them on the piano.
Another game with fractions and powers, to practise the sums.
History of philosophy: whose idea is it?
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