The beat is the regular pulse you count or tap. Tempo is how fast those beats occur. At 60 beats per minute, or BPM, each beat lasts one second. At 120 BPM, each lasts half a second. Rhythm describes when notes begin and how long they last relative to the beat. Changing tempo need not change the rhythm.
We will use 4/4 time. The top 4 groups beats into measures, also called bars, of four. The bottom 4 makes the quarter note the beat unit. Count “1, 2, 3, 4” and start again at 1. A bar line separates measures; it does not add a pause.
For eighth notes, divide each beat evenly into “1 and, 2 and, 3 and, 4 and.” The “and” is halfway between numbered beats. Do not speed up the numbered counts. A dotted quarter lasts one and a half beats. Follow it with an eighth note to fill two beats. A whole note lasts four beats in this meter.
Selected event 1: C4 · 1 beat · Right-hand finger 1
Stopped. Select a note with Next note, or play with sound.
Right hand · treble clef. Finger numbers: 1 thumb, 2 index, 3 middle, 4 ring, 5 little.
Tempo: 60 quarter-note beats per minute. The count-in lasts 4 beats. Durations in the selected-note readout use quarter-note units. Tempo changes and Reset stop playback and select the first note. Audio starts only on request, plays once, and stops when hidden or off-screen. The tones are synthesized pitch guides, not a piano recording. A short release gap separates notes. Next note advances to the next attack in either hand. Held notes stay highlighted. There is no moving cursor. Start at low device volume.
The two-bar score keeps every sounded pitch on C4. This removes a changing-key task so you can inspect timing alone. The first bar has C on beat 1, C on beat 2, a rest on beat 3, and C on beat 4. The numbered beats continue at equal intervals even though only three of them begin sounds. If you tapped only when a note appeared, your tapping would stop representing the beat at the rest. Count all four numbers while deciding separately whether the hand should press or release.
Treat a beat number as a time boundary. The note on beat 1 begins at that boundary and lasts until beat 2 begins. The next C begins there and lasts until beat 3. At beat 3, release for the rest. Its silence lasts until beat 4, when the next C begins. After that quarter note, the next bar begins on its own beat 1. The bar line organizes these boundaries into groups. It does not insert another interval between the final beat of one bar and the first beat of the next.
The selected-event readout and the notation describe events, not a count of sounded notes alone. In this example the rest is an event too. Use Next note to inspect it without sound. The selection advances to the rest, whose empty pitch content tells you there is no key to press. Advancing manually does not determine how long a beat lasts. You can spend as long as needed examining a symbol, then use the printed duration when counting at the instrument. This distinction prevents slow button clicking from becoming an accidental model of the rhythm.
Compare a repeated C with a held C. In the first bar, beats 1 and 2 have separate quarter-note heads, so there are two attacks with a release between them. In the second bar, the first C has an open head and a stem. That half note has one attack on beat 1 and continues across beat 2. The same pitch can therefore occupy the same total time with different numbers of starts. Counting seconds alone would not distinguish the patterns; reading the noteheads and listening for renewed attacks does.
Read each staff from left to right. The clef identifies pitch, the 4/4 marks the meter, and vertical bar lines divide the measures. A note’s shape gives its duration; horizontal gaps are reading space, not a stopwatch. Numbers above the notes are right-hand fingers. The optional labels below give note names. In bar 2, hold C through counts 1 and 2, play on 3 and “3 and,” then play on 4.
The duration guide separates several details that are easy to merge when first reading a score. A filled notehead with a stem is a quarter note. An open notehead with a stem is a half note. Adding a flag to the filled notehead makes an eighth note. The guide's dot sits beside the note rather than above or below it. That duration dot adds half of the original value. Read the head, stem, flag, and side dot together before deciding how long to hold a key.
In this meter, the quarter note is one beat, so the half note occupies two quarter-note beats and the eighth occupies half of one. The word 'eighth' names a note value, not eight taps or beat number 8. Two eighth notes together take one quarter-note beat. A whole note has an open head without a stem and occupies four beats here. You can compare these shapes with the score and the guide, but do not infer duration from how wide a note looks or how much empty staff follows it.
A dotted quarter begins with the quarter's one beat. Half of that original duration is half a beat. Add it once to get one and a half beats. The dot does not double the note, and it does not add a fixed beat to every note value. This lesson's score does not need a dotted quarter, but the guide introduces it for the melody that follows. Its meaning comes from the undotted note's value, which is why identifying the head and stem before interpreting the dot matters.
Pitch and duration occupy different parts of the notation. Moving a quarter note higher on the staff would change its pitch without changing its quarter-note value. Opening the C notehead to make a half note changes its duration without changing the C position. The two-bar example holds the pitch constant so that these duration differences remain visible. Finger 1 can play every C in the exercise, but that repeated fingering does not tell you whether a particular C is a quarter, half, or eighth note.
Read the second bar before playing it. Its durations are two beats, half a beat, half a beat, and one beat. They total four. The half note begins on 1 and fills the intervals from 1 to 2 and from 2 to 3. The first eighth note therefore cannot begin on 2. It begins on 3, after the two-beat hold has finished. The next eighth begins halfway between 3 and 4. The final quarter begins on 4 and ends at the following bar boundary.
Say '1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and' at an even subdivision rate. Each numbered beat and its following 'and' divide one beat into two equal parts. Hold the opening C while you say 1, and, 2, and. Make a fresh attack on 3, another on the following and, and another on 4. Continue through the final and before releasing at the end. There are four attacks in this bar, but they do not occur at four equally spaced moments. The count supplies equal subdivisions even when the attacks do not.
One common misreading turns the half note into two repeated quarter notes. Another keeps the half note intact but places the two eighths on beats 3 and 4, leaving no time for the final quarter. To distinguish them, speak only the attack positions while a separate quiet count continues. The required attack positions are 1, 3, 3 and, and 4. If you hear an attack on 2, you have repeated the half note. If nothing happens between 3 and 4, you have not yet divided that beat for the eighths.
Predict a contrasting second bar by replacing its two eighths with a single quarter on beat 3. That replacement preserves the bar's four beats but removes the attack on '3 and'. Now restore the two eighths. Their two attacks must fit into the same time that the replacement quarter occupied, so the final note still begins on 4. Tap both versions while speaking the same count, then play the written version on C4. You can check this silently from the values or optionally compare it with Play with sound. The contrast is the extra attack inside beat 3, not an extra beat.
Playback has four count-in clicks, then the phrase. It does not listen to you or grade timing. Listen first, count without the recording, then compare your count with a replay. Small visual timing delays can occur on busy devices; the browser audio clock schedules the notes.
BPM specifies how many quarter-note beats pass in one minute for these examples. At 60 BPM, dividing sixty seconds by sixty beats gives one second per beat. The first bar's rest therefore lasts one second, just like either quarter note beside it. The second bar's half note lasts two seconds, and each eighth lasts half a second. Both bars take four seconds. The amount of silence affects the number of sounded notes, but not the duration of the bar or the pace of the underlying count.
At 80 BPM, a beat lasts three quarters of a second because sixty divided by eighty is 0.75. A half note then lasts 1.5 seconds and an eighth lasts 0.375 seconds. A four-beat bar lasts three seconds. You do not need to measure these fractions while playing. Their purpose is to show why all durations change together when tempo changes. The ratio between a half note and an eighth remains four to one. Increasing tempo does not make the half note become a different written note value.
Select Slow practice and Steady in turn to compare the same notation at different tempi. A tempo selection stops playback and returns selection to the beginning, so it is a new attempt rather than a speed change midway through the phrase. The printed pitches, rest, and note values stay the same. If your second-bar eighths become ordinary one-beat notes when you count faster, you have changed the rhythm as well as the tempo. Return to subdividing that beat rather than assuming faster playback will teach the missing proportion.
The Later goal preset is another reference speed, not a requirement to advance after a certain number of repetitions. You can investigate the rhythm without moving through all presets. A useful comparison is whether your rest still occupies one full beat and whether the eighth pair still fits entirely inside beat 3. These are specific relationships you can listen for at any selected tempo. The page does not record your performance or decide whether either relationship was correct, so the choice to change tempo remains yours.
Try the first bar without pitches by saying 'sound, sound, silence, sound' while keeping four equal counts. Then use C with the thumb. The second press must end at beat 3 so that the rest can begin. Leaving the key down until beat 4 preserves the attack pattern but removes the written silence. By contrast, releasing on beat 3 and waiting an extra beat before continuing preserves the silence but shifts the fourth note late. The correct rest needs both a release at its start and an on-time next attack.
Inspect the connection between the bars as its own timing problem. The first bar ends with a quarter C on beat 4, and the second begins with a half C on beat 1. Because the pitches match, it is easy to merge them into one held note. They require separate attacks. Count the end of the first bar and the beginning of the second as '3, 4, 1, 2, 3'. There is silence on the first 3, a press on 4, another on 1, a hold through 2, and a fresh press on the last 3.
If the reference sounds slightly detached, do not interpret every audible gap as a notated rest. The synthesized tones have short release gaps that separate notes. The quarter rest is an entire counted beat with no note, whereas the small separation between repeated Cs allows you to hear two attacks. Use the printed values to decide what belongs to the rhythm. Visual highlighting can also lag behind audio on a busy device, so neither pixel spacing nor the instant a highlight changes is a precise measurement of your own timing.
For a final diagnostic pass, identify the first boundary where your count and your playing disagree. A missing beat at the rest calls for counting silence. An extra attack during the half note calls for holding instead of repeating. Unequal eighths call for dividing one beat evenly. A pause at the bar line calls for connecting the last beat to the next 1. These are different repairs. Apply the one that matches the observed error while keeping the rest of the two-bar pattern unchanged.
Does a half note followed by two quarter notes fill a 4/4 bar? When does each note begin?
In 4/4, add the durations until they reach four quarter-note beats.
Right hand · treble clef. Finger numbers: 1 thumb, 2 index, 3 middle, 4 ring, 5 little.
A half note is two beats. Two quarter notes add one beat each, for four total. Start the half note on 1, hold through 2, then play the quarters on 3 and 4. Begin the next bar on the following 1.
Play quarter note, quarter rest, quarter note, quarter note. What happens to your counting during the rest?
Silence still takes time.
Right hand · treble clef. Finger numbers: 1 thumb, 2 index, 3 middle, 4 ring, 5 little.
Keep the pulse. Play on 1, release on 2 and count silently or aloud, then play on 3 and 4. Skipping the rest would shift the last two notes a beat early.
When does an eighth note begin after a dotted quarter that started on beat 1?
Count eighth-note subdivisions: 1 and 2 and.
Right hand · treble clef. Finger numbers: 1 thumb, 2 index, 3 middle, 4 ring, 5 little.
Start the dotted quarter on 1 and hold through “1 and” and 2. Start the eighth note on “2 and.” Together they last two beats. At 60 BPM those durations are 1.5 and 0.5 seconds; at 120 BPM they are 0.75 and 0.25 seconds.
MusicTheory.net lessons provide further explanations of notation, rhythm, and chords. Open Music Theory is a longer reference. The keyboard diagrams, exercises, and rock-style study here were made for these lessons. The Beethoven example uses a public-domain melody, transposed to C, not a modern published arrangement.
Robert Hutchinson's Music Theory for the 21st-Century Classroom provides optional explanations of staff notation. Its sections on meter, major-scale construction, inversions, and chord symbols support the corresponding theory explanations. These references do not assess physical technique or certify a playing level.
Casio CT-S300 product information is the reference for the likely instrument. The lessons do not depend on a particular button sequence, USB connection, or automatic accompaniment.