Complex Rhythms Demystified

April 2005 By Joe Bigham

Part 1: Reading Rhythms

Many beginning and intermediate musicians can be intimidated by written music. Rhythmic values and time signatures can be two particularly difficult aspects of reading from a score. Still, one can use some very basic concepts to help decipher these rhythms, and in turn gain a greater understanding of rhythm in general, be it a highly syncopated melody or a 10/8 time signature.

It all comes down to counting. This may sound oversimplified, but counting will proves to be the easiest way to learn new rhythms. In grade school, children are taught to count by quarter notes: quarter note is 1 beat, a half note 2 beats, a whole note 4 beats. This proves to be inefficient once eighth, sixteenths, or thirty-second notes are encountered. Instead of counting the beats, use the smallest value as your counting source.

Example: if you are playing a melody which has a smallest rhythmic value of an eighth note, each eighth note gets 1 count, quarter notes get 2 counts and so on.

Another example: If a thirty-second note is your smallest value (rarely ever in folk music) then it would get 1 count, sixteenth notes would get 2 counts and so on.

Remember that dotted notes are equal to their value plus another half. Therefor a dotted quarter note is equal to a quarter note plus an eighth note. If our smallest rhythmic value is an eighth, we would then say the dotted quarter would receive 3 counts.

dotted quarter = quarter+eighth = 3 counts (eighth note base)

dotted eighth = eighth+sixteenth = 3 counts (sixteenth note base)

You may have noticed from the insert above that both examples receive 3 counts, but remember the base value is the key to counting. If you are using a sixteenth note base, then the top example would read as such:

dotted quarter = quarter+eighth = 6 counts (sixteenth note base)

Using this counting method, anyone should be able to decipher even the trickiest of rhythms.