Rhythm

Meter

________: the stresses of strong and weak beats.

Rhythmic values

________: the duration of pitches.

Beams

________ facilitate note reading and counting by grouping notes into units reflecting the beat.

Time signature

________: indicates the recurrent grouping of accented and unaccented beats.

Time

the duration of sounds or silences

Beat

the regularity of a pulse

Tempo

the rate of speed of the beat

Rhythmic values

the duration of pitches

In music, the first beat of each measure

is normally the strongest and is given an accent (>).

Metric accent:

the repeating pattern of strong beats followed by weaker beats

When the top number of the time signature is a 2, 3, or 4, this is called

a simple meter.

In a simple meter, the pulse note is

divided into two or four equal parts.

The pitches of a melodic line will sound differently when

they are written in different meters

The time signature is found

at the beginning of a piece of music just after the clef sign (not at the beginning of every staff of music).

Vertical lines called bar lines are placed

at the end of each grouping of beats and separate the groups into measures.

A double bar is placed

at the end of a section of music (not at the end of every staff).

The end of a piece is indicated by

a final double bar

The lower number of the time signature indicates

the type of note that receives one beat (sometimes called the pulse note), and subsequently determines the number of beats that each note receives.

When the lower number of the time signature is 4,

the quarter note is the pulse note and receives one count.

Stems with flags can be added only to

note heads that are filled in

Single eighth notes are drawn

with a stem and one flag

Single sixteenth notes have

a stem and two flags

Several adjacent eighth or sixteenth notes frequently are

linked together with thick, straight lines called beams. 

Because beams replace flags, eighth notes have

one beam and sixteenth notes are drawn with two beams.

Beams facilitate note reading and counting by

grouping notes into units reflecting the beat.

In older editions of vocal music it was common to use

individual notes with flags, instead of beams, to match each syllable of the lyrics with a specific pitch; this practice is not in use today.

When beaming groups of notes together, the direction of the stems will be determined by

the placement on the staff of the majority of the notes.

Beginning with the whole note,

each note divides into two smaller parts.