When you divide a note into eight different parts your get eighth notes. To find the value of these notes you have to divide a quarter note in half.
The quarter note receives 1 beat so we need to subdivide it to see how long to hold out the note.
Subdividing Notes
If you remember from the previous lessons there are four beats per measure. If you played a quarter note on each beat you would have four quarter notes in a measure.
Subdivide those four quarter notes give you eighths.
Look at the image below to help you understand how subdividing notes works.
This tells us that the eighths get half the time of a quarter note. Which means that there are eight of them in one measure
To count this note you count 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Each number and word gets a note.
Look at the image below and you will see that there are plus signs between the numbers. You count these plus signs as “and.”
What They Look Like
It is identical to a quarter note in that it has a filled in circle with a stem. The difference is that these have one flag off the side of the stem.
These notes can be put together in pairs also. They take the flag and connect it to the other note to make two notes together.
You still play these notes as individual notes.
Just because the flags are together you still play these notes as individual notes.
Take a look at the image and see how there are bars at the top of the notes instead of flags. This bar above the note connects these notes together. Instead of giving them a flag like a normal eighth note, these have flags to represent the note.
Listen to the audio file and you can hear how the notes that are tied together with bars are still played separately and still counted 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and.
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