This article is the first part of two articles to help you understand and master reading rhythms. It consists of 10 exercises that use semibreves, minims, crotchets, quavers, semiquavers and triplets. Before proceeding, I would recommend reading 10 Common Rhythms You Must Be Able to Read as it covers the basics of what we are going to develop further in this article.

The exercises included are played on a guitar on note E (6th string open). However, you do not need to play them on a guitar. You can either play note E on the instrument you already can play or simply just clap the exercises. Each audio track exercise features a m etronome count to ensure that you can hear where the beat is. Furthermore, the audio tracks start with a one bar of just the metronome count. This will guide how fast each exercise is to be played.

Semibreves, Minims, Crotchets and Quavers

The first two exercises to learn to help you to develop reading rhythms feature three types of notes:

semibreves (also called whole notes) worth 4 beats
minims (also called half notes) worth 2 counts
crotchets (also called quarter notes) worth 1 count
quavers (also called eighth notes) worth ½ a count each

The diagram below shows you what each of these note values look like in music notation.

When two quavers are written next to each other, the tail gets replaced by a beam as shown below.

Exercise 1

Exercise 2

Semiquavers

In the next three exercises you will be reading rhythms that feature semiquavers (also called sixteenth notes). Each semiquaver is worth a quarter of one count/beat. As it was with quavers, when two or more semiquavers are written next to each other, the tail gets replaced by a beam as shown below.

Exercise 3

When four quavers are in beats one and two of a bar, the beams on all four notes are joined together (see bars 2 and 3) in the exercise below.

Exercise 4

Exercise 5

Triplets

The last five exercises expand your skills by featuring triplets. Triplets are indicated in music notation by three quavers joined together with the number three written above or below them. In a triplet, you play 3 quaver notes in the time of two quavers.

Exercise 6

As with four quavers in beats one and two (explained earlier), when four quavers are in beats three and four of a bar, the beams on all four notes are joined together (see bars 1 and 3) in the exercise below.