From the course: Music Theory for Songwriters: Rhythm

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Rests

Rests

From the course: Music Theory for Songwriters: Rhythm

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Rests

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- Most people think of music as a combination of notes. Well, music is not made up only of notes. The well known French composer, Claude Debussy, famously said, "music is the space between the notes." One way to create space between notes is to use rests. Literally, a rest means to not play a note. Take a rest, take a load off, yo, chill, stop playing for a second. Rests are like anti-notes. Those same clever people who came up with notes also came up with rests, and they're notated in basically the same way that notes are, but with different symbols. They look like this. Here's a simple example using rests. Clap along with me on quarter notes. One, two, three, four, One, two, three, four. Okay, now we're going to add in a rest on beat three, ready? One, two, rest, four, One, two, rest, four. We subdivide time and notate music using a combination of notes and rests. Let's look at what the possible rest values are and how they relate to a measure. First, we have the whole note rest…

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