Rhythm reading and counting
Read and count every rhythm you will meet in jazz charts: note values, rests, dots, ties, 4/4 and 3/4, eighth-note counting, triplets, syncopation and anticipation, with clapping drills and one-note reading études.
Why rhythm is the half most guitarists skip
Ask a working jazz musician what separates amateurs from professionals and the answer is almost never "they know more chords". It is time: the ability to read a rhythm off a chart, place it exactly, and keep the form. Guitarists learn pitch from tab and rhythm from recordings, which means many can play a line perfectly by ear but cannot read "the and of 4" from a page or write down what they just played. This lesson fixes that. Everything is on a single note, so your hands have nothing to do except play in time; all the attention goes to counting.
Work through it with the metronome running. Every example should be clapped and counted aloud before it is played.
Beats, bars and the time signature
Music is organised into a steady pulse, the beat, grouped into bars (measures) by bar lines. The time signature at the start tells you how: the top number is how many beats per bar, the bottom number which note value gets one beat. In 4/4, by far the most common signature in jazz, there are four beats per bar and the quarter note gets one beat. In 3/4 (the jazz waltz) there are three. The metronome click is the beat.
Count 4/4 aloud as "1 2 3 4", with the "1" slightly stronger, and keep counting through every example in this lesson.
Note values
A whole note lasts four beats: a whole bar of 4/4. Each smaller value is half the previous one: a half note is two beats, a quarter note one beat, an eighth note half a beat, a sixteenth note a quarter of a beat. The names are the fractions of a 4/4 bar. On the staff, a whole note is an open note head with no stem, a half note an open head with a stem, a quarter a filled head with a stem, an eighth adds a flag (or a beam joining it to its neighbours), a sixteenth two flags or two beams.
alphaTex source
\tempo 72 . \ts 4 4 :1 5.3 | :2 5.3 5.3 | :4 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 | :8 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 | :16 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 5.3 |
Clap this with the metronome at 72. The whole note is clapped once and held (keep counting silently); in bar 4 you clap twice per click; in bar 5 four times per click. If the sixteenths feel rushed, slow the metronome to 60. The point is not speed but that every subdivision sits evenly inside the click.
Rests
Every note value has a rest of the same length: a whole rest hangs below a line, a half rest sits on a line, a quarter rest is a zigzag, an eighth rest a single hook, a sixteenth rest a double hook. Rests are played by not playing: for a guitarist this means actively stopping the string (lift the fretting finger slightly, or touch the string with the picking hand). A rest counted silently is still counted.
alphaTex source
\tempo 72
.
\ts 4 4
:4 5.3 r 5.3 r | :8 5.3 r 5.3 r 5.3 r 5.3 r | :2 r 5.3 | :4 5.3 r.2{d} |Bar 2 is the most useful one for jazz: a note on the beat and silence on the "and". Later, the reverse (silence on the beat, note on the "and") becomes the basis of comping rhythms.
Dots and ties
A dot after a note adds half its value: a dotted half note is three beats, a dotted quarter is one and a half beats, a dotted eighth is three quarters of a beat. A tie is a curved line joining two notes of the same pitch; you play the first and hold it for the combined length of both. Ties are how you write a duration that crosses a beat or a bar line, and jazz charts are full of them.
alphaTex source
\tempo 72
.
\ts 4 4
:4 5.3{d} :8 5.3 :4 5.3 5.3 | :2 5.3{d} :4 5.3 | :4 5.3 5.3 -.3 5.3 | :2 5.3 5.3 | -.3 5.3 |Dotted quarter followed by an eighth (bar 1) is one of the most common figures in all music; count it "1 (2) & 3 4", clapping on 1, on the "and" of 2, on 3 and on 4. Whenever you see a dot, work out where the next note falls before you play.
Counting eighth notes: "1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &"
The beat divides in two. The first half is the number, the second half is "and", written &. Everything you count from now on uses this grid: a quarter note is "1" held through "&"; two eighths are "1 &"; an eighth rest followed by an eighth is "(1) &". Say the whole grid aloud even when the notes do not fill it.
alphaTex source
\tempo 80
.
\ts 4 4
:8 5.3{txt "1"} 5.3{txt "&"} 5.3{txt "2"} 5.3{txt "&"} 5.3{txt "3"} 5.3{txt "&"} 5.3{txt "4"} 5.3{txt "&"} | :4 5.3{txt "1"} :8 5.3{txt "2"} 5.3{txt "&"} :4 5.3{txt "3"} :8 r{txt "4"} 5.3{txt "&"} | :8 r{txt "1"} 5.3{txt "&"} r{txt "2"} 5.3{txt "&"} :4 5.3{txt "3"} 5.3{txt "4"} | :2 5.3{txt "1"} :8 5.3{txt "3"} 5.3{txt "&"} :4 5.3{txt "4"} |The alternate-picking rule from the technique lesson now becomes a counting tool: the pick goes down on numbers and up on ands, including when there is a rest on the number. If you keep the picking hand swinging down-up through the rests ("ghosting" the strokes in the air), the offbeat notes land in exactly the right place.
3/4: the jazz waltz
In 3/4 there are three quarter-note beats per bar; count "1 2 3". The dotted half note fills a bar. Everything else works as in 4/4. Jazz waltzes are usually played with the same swing feel as 4/4, and the "1" is felt strongly.
alphaTex source
\tempo 96
.
\ts 3 4
:4 5.3 5.3 5.3 | :2 5.3{d} | :2 5.3 :4 5.3 | :4 5.3 :8 5.3 5.3 :4 5.3 | :4 r 5.3 5.3 | :2 5.3{d} |Triplets
A triplet divides a beat (or any value) into three equal parts instead of two. Eighth-note triplets fit three notes in the space of one beat; count them "1 trip-let 2 trip-let" or "1 & a 2 & a". A quarter-note triplet fits three notes in the space of two beats (a half note), and is counted most easily by feeling the eighth-note triplet underneath and playing every second note.
alphaTex source
\tempo 72
.
\ts 4 4
:8 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} :4 5.3 5.3 | :4 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} :2 5.3 | :8 5.3{tu 3} r{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} r{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} :2 5.3 |Bar 3 matters more than it looks. Swing eighth notes are, at medium tempos, close to the first and third notes of an eighth-note triplet: long–short. When a caption in this course says "swing the eighths", it means feel the triplet grid under the written eighths and lean the offbeat late, as in bar 3. Module 5 goes deep on this; for now, learn to feel three inside the beat.
Syncopation and anticipation
Syncopation is an accent where the ear does not expect one: on an "and", or on a weak beat (2 or 4) while the strong beats are silent or tied over. Jazz is syncopated by default. The two figures you must recognise instantly:
- The Charleston: a note on beat 1 and a note on the "and" of 2, held. Written as a dotted quarter followed by an eighth tied into the next beats.
- The anticipation: a note that belongs to the next beat or the next bar is played an eighth note early, on the "and" before it, and tied across. "The and of 4" anticipating beat 1 is the most common rhythmic event in a jazz chart.
alphaTex source
\tempo 100
.
\ts 4 4
:4 5.3{d} :8 5.3 :2 -.3 | :4 5.3 5.3 5.3 :8 5.3 5.3 | :2 -.3 :4 5.3 5.3 | :8 r 5.3 :4 -.3 :8 r 5.3 :4 -.3 |The last bar is pure offbeats: nothing on 1, 2, 3 or 4. To play it, keep the down-strokes going silently on the numbers and let the up-strokes hit on the ands. If the offbeats drift late, you are listening for them instead of counting them; say "1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &" loudly and clap only on the ands.
A syncopated note gets its tension from the beat it avoids. An anticipation on the and of 4 only sounds early because you can hear where beat 1 would have been. This is why the count must continue in your head through every tie and rest: the silent beat is the reference that gives the played note its meaning.
Reading rhythms on one note
Before you read pitches and rhythms together, read rhythms alone. The étude below mixes everything above. Use it in three ways: clap and count it; play it on one note with alternate picking; then play it on a chord (any shape you know), which is exactly what rhythmic comping looks like on a chart.
alphaTex source
\tempo 84
.
\ts 4 4
:4 5.3 5.3 :8 5.3 5.3 :4 5.3 | :4 5.3{d} :8 5.3 :4 r 5.3 | :8 5.3 5.3 r 5.3 :4 5.3 :8 r 5.3 | :2 -.3 :4 5.3 5.3 | :4 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} 5.3{tu 3} :2 5.3 | :8 r 5.3 :4 -.3 :8 r 5.3 :4 -.3 | :4 5.3 :8 5.3 5.3 :4 r :8 r 5.3 | :1 -.3 |The same figures applied to a chord become comping. Here the étude's first four bars are played on a three-note G7 shape; the rhythm is identical, so count it the same way.
alphaTex source
\tempo 84
.
\ts 4 4
:4 (3.6 3.4 4.3){ch "G7"} (3.6 3.4 4.3) :8 (3.6 3.4 4.3) (3.6 3.4 4.3) :4 (3.6 3.4 4.3) | :4 (3.6 3.4 4.3){d} :8 (3.6 3.4 4.3) :4 r (3.6 3.4 4.3) | :8 (3.6 3.4 4.3) (3.6 3.4 4.3) r (3.6 3.4 4.3) :4 (3.6 3.4 4.3) :8 r (3.6 3.4 4.3) | :2 (-.6 -.4 -.3) :4 (3.6 3.4 4.3) (3.6 3.4 4.3) |Drills that build counting
- Clap and count. Metronome at 72. Count "1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &" aloud continuously; clap each example. Do not play anything until it is clapped correctly three times in a row.
- Count and play on one note. Same tempo, any note, strict alternate picking. The picking hand is the counting hand.
- Metronome on 2 and 4. Set the metronome to half the tempo and treat each click as beats 2 and 4 (count "1" silently before the first click). This is how jazz musicians practise; it makes you responsible for beats 1 and 3.
- Write a bar, then play it. Take a blank line, write eight eighth-note slots, and fill them with any combination of notes, rests and ties that adds up to four beats. Play it. Writing rhythms is the fastest way to learn to read them.
- Read any chart's rhythms on one note. Take any lead sheet you own, ignore the pitches, and play its rhythm on a single note, counting aloud.
- Week 1: note values, rests, dots and ties. Clap every example above at 72 bpm, then play them on one note. Add the 3/4 example on day 4.
- Week 2: triplets and the counting example. Alternate: one day eighth-note triplets at 60-72 bpm, the next day the eighths example with the metronome on 2 and 4 (click at 40, counted as 80).
- Week 3: the Charleston/anticipation example and the eight-bar étude, on one note at 84 bpm, then on the G7 shape, then on any chord you know. Write one four-bar rhythm of your own each day and play it. Pass mark: the eight-bar étude clapped, counted aloud, and played on a chord with the metronome on 2 and 4 at 84 bpm, without stopping, three times in a row. Module 5 continues from here with swing feel and comping rhythms.