Starter Studies

Lesson 5 - Section 1

Learning About Tempo

As you have already learned, the Time Signature at the beginning of the staff will tell you what size a measure is. Now you are ready to learn how fast or how slow to play a measure. This is called the Tempo. Please play the mp3 file posted under the image and adjust your speakers or earphones as needed. Not too loud!

You are listening to the Tempo of the song shown in the staff above. The Tempo for a song is expressed in beats per minute. Each click you hear represents 1 beat.

These beats are playing at a rate of 1 beat per second. Since there are 60 seconds in a minute, this would mean that the Tempo you are listening to is:

60 beats per minute or 60 BPM.

Lesson 5 - Section 2

Time Signature and Tempo Working Together

The Time Signature tells you that the size for each measure will be four quarter notes long.

The Tempo tells you how fast to play each quarter note.

Please play the mp3 file posted under the image in this section.

Listen to the “click” sounds that are being played.

Each click represents one quarter note.

Tap your hand on your thigh and match the speed of each click heard with one tap of your hand.

As you do this, look at each quarter note (reading from left to right) on the staff.

Let your eyes move from one quarter note to the next as you hear each click and perform one tap with your hand.

When your eyes run out of quarter notes, go back to the beginning of the staff and begin again.

Continue to repeat this exercise over and over for at least 3 minutes.

When you are done, go to the next section.

Lesson 5 - Section 3

Congratulations!

Congratulations. Do you know what you have just done in the previous section? You, my friend and student, have just learned to read and play (tap) your first piece of music!

You can now tell your friends, mom, dad, husband, wife, co-worker, classmate, favorite teacher, mail person, etc. that you’ve just learned how to read music.

Give yourself a big mental teddy bear hug. Well Done. Good job.

< Previous - Next >