This article is the second part of two articles to help you understand and master to how read rhythms. Prior to practicing the exercises in this lesson, I recommend you first go through the exercises in part 1.
Part 2 consists of 10 exercises that use the notation you used in part one plus it includes rests and syncopation.
Like on the first article, the exercises included in this article are played on a guitar on note E (6th string open). However, it is just as effective for you to clap the exercises. This is because the main goal with this article (and the part 1 article) is to develop good rhythm reading skills.
Exercise 1 (below) uses crotchets, quavers and a semibreve in the last bar. Note how the ties create create syncopation in the rhythm. Play the corresponding audio track which is underneath it to hear how it sounds. All exercises in this lesson feature a metronome that is used as a count-in and is heard throughout the examples.
Exercise 1
Exercise 2 (below) uses similar types of notes (i.e. crotchets, quavers and a semibreve) to help you further to understand how to read rhythms with syncopation.
Exercise 2
Semiquavers (also called sixteenth notes) are introduced in exercise 3. Please see bar 3 (1st beat).
Exercise 3
In the following exercise, triplets (see bars 1 and 3) and a minim (see the last note) are introduced to further develop your skills to read rhythms.
Exercise 4
As per previous exercises, exercise 5 continues to explore syncopation further.
Exercise 5
Exercise 6 (below) introduces rests in bars 1, 3 and 4. If you are not familiar with these rest values, click here to learn about them.
Exercise 6
Exercise 7 introduces dotted quaver rhythms. In bar 3, you will find them notated as groupings of one dotted quaver followed by a semiquaver (see beats one and two). In bar 4, you will find them notated as groupings of one semiquaver followed by a dotted quaver (see beats one and two).
Exercise 7
Exercise 8 introduces a new rhythm figure. In bar 2 (beats 1-3) and in bar 4 (beat 3), you find groupings of one quaver followed by two semiquavers. In addition, in bar 3 (beats 1 and 2), you find groupings of two semiquavers followed by one quaver.
Exercise 8
The last two exercises combine many of the rhythm skills/ rhythm figures you have learnt in this lesson. When you are comfortable playing these exercises (plus all previous exercises), you have grasped a good understanding of how to read rhythms in music.
Exercise 9
Exercise 10
Now that you are comfortable to read rhythms, you can further improve your understanding of music with lessons at our music school. Find out more about our music lessons.