The Exercise
Okay, we’ve had sixteen lessons, so far. Things have gone smoothly and everyone had fun. In this lesson, I’m going to hit you over the head with some new things.
First of all, we’ll be playing some different chords (one, the B7 in particular, is kind of difficult for beginners to play). Second of all, we’ll be introduced to the quarter rest.
Resting sounds easy. I picture lying on the couch. Rests in music are quite similar. During a rest, you don’t play anything. Sounds easy, right? The part where you don’t play is easy, but you still must be engaged with the song to maintain your timing.
Quarter Rest
A Quarter Rest gets the same value as a quarter note, but instead of playing, you rest for that duration. There are 4 quarters in a whole. For example, a dollar bill can be divided up into 4 quarters. (.25 + .25 + .25 + .25 = $1.00). We rest for a quarter of the measure. That’s why it’s a quarter rest. Here’s what it looks like.
So, when we see a quarter rest we rest for one beat. We still have to count it (in our exercises: 1 and 2 and rest and four and) , so we know exactly when to come back in.