Key Stage 2 music · Notation

KS2 music: rhythm and note values, a guide for parents

Notation is the way music is written down, and the Key Stage 2 curriculum asks children to use and understand staff and other musical notations. Rhythm, the pattern of long and short sounds, is where most schools begin. Children learn the names and lengths of the main notes and rests, how to count them in bars, and how to clap, play and write short rhythms. Pitch on the stave is a separate part of notation.

Rhythm and note values, explained

The curriculum says “staff and other musical notations”, so schools use a range of ways to write music. Younger juniors may use pictures, shapes, rhythm grids or their own symbols. Older children usually move on to standard staff notation, the five-line system used around the world. This page is about the part of staff notation that shows how long each sound lasts. The part that shows how high or low a note is, its position on the lines and spaces, is a separate skill taught alongside it.

The first idea is the difference between pulse and rhythm. The pulse is the steady beat, like a heartbeat or a walking pace, and it does not change. Rhythm is the pattern of long and short sounds that fits on top of it. Each note value is measured in beats. In the most common arrangement, a crotchet lasts one beat, a quaver lasts half a beat (so two quavers fit into one beat), a minim lasts two beats and a semibreve lasts four. A rest is a silence of the same length as the matching note: a crotchet rest is a one-beat silence. Many schools teach spoken syllables to match, such as “ta” for a crotchet, “ti-ti” for a pair of quavers and “ta-a” for a minim.

Notes are grouped into bars by vertical lines, and each bar has the same number of beats. At the start of a piece a time signature tells you how many beats are in each bar: in 4/4, the top number says there are four beats and the bottom number says that each one is a crotchet. Schools usually concentrate on 2/4, 3/4 and 4/4. Some schools also introduce semiquavers, which are four to a beat, or dotted notes in the upper years, but these are choices for schools to make and are not named in the curriculum.

Teaching is practical. Children clap and say a pattern before they see it written down, then read from cards or the board, and eventually write their own. They tap the pulse with a foot while clapping the rhythm, count the beats in each bar aloud, and perform silences as carefully as sounds. They are expected to follow simple written rhythms when they play, and to use notation to record their compositions. These skills support performing, composing and aural memory, and they lead on to using staff notation more accurately in Key Stage 3.

Words your child will hear

Pulse: The steady beat of a piece, which stays the same however the rhythm changes.
Rhythm: The pattern of long and short sounds played over the pulse.
Crotchet: A note lasting one beat, drawn as a filled-in head with a stem.
Quaver: A note lasting half a beat, drawn as a filled-in head with a stem and a tail. Two quavers are often joined by a beam and fit into one beat.
Minim: A note lasting two beats, drawn as a hollow head with a stem.
Semibreve: A note lasting four beats, drawn as a hollow oval with no stem.
Rest: A silence in the music, with a length matching a note, such as a crotchet rest.

What the National Curriculum says

The programme of study for Key Stage 2 says:

Pupils should be taught to use and understand staff and other musical notations
Aim: pupils understand and explore how music is created, produced and communicated, including through the interrelated dimensions: pitch, duration, dynamics, tempo, timbre, texture, structure and appropriate musical notations.

Objectives from the National Curriculum in England, © Crown copyright, used under the Open Government Licence v3.0.

Try it: clapping and checking a two-bar rhythm

In 4/4 time, clap this two-bar rhythm. Bar 1: crotchet, two quavers, minim. Bar 2: crotchet, crotchet rest, two quavers, crotchet. Check that each bar has four beats.

Fix the pulse. In 4/4 each bar has four beats and each beat is a crotchet. Tap the pulse with a foot: 1, 2, 3, 4 and again.
Work out the length of each note. A crotchet is one beat (“ta”). Two quavers share one beat (“ti-ti”). Here they fall on beat 2, so they are counted “2 and”, shown as “2 &” below. A minim is held for two beats (“ta-a”). Check bar 1: 1 + 1 + 2 = 4 beats. This matches the time signature.
```
Count:  1      2 &    3      4
Say:    ta     ti ti  ta     -
```
Now bar 2. The crotchet is one beat. The crotchet rest is a one-beat silence: keep counting, but do not clap, and open your hands to show the gap. Two quavers share the third beat and a crotchet fills the fourth. Check: 1 + 1 + 1 + 1 = 4 beats.
```
Count:  1      2      3 &    4
Say:    ta     (rest) ti ti  ta
```
Put it together. Clap both bars twice through with the foot tapping steadily. The silent beat in bar 2 is the part most children rush, so keep the pulse going throughout.

Bar 1 is ta, ti-ti, ta-a and bar 2 is ta, (rest), ti-ti, ta. Both bars add up to four beats, which fits 4/4. The pulse never stops, even during the rest.

Common mistakes and how to help

Treating rhythm and pulse as the same thing and clapping every note as if it lasted one beat

Many children first meet music as a tune with a steady beat, and the idea that notes can be longer or shorter than the beat is new.

What helps: Tap the pulse with a foot or a hand while clapping the rhythm with the other hand. Show that quavers squeeze two notes into one beat, rather than making the music speed up.

Skipping the rests, so a bar ends up short

A rest is nothing on the page, and children assume they should just carry on or that nothing is happening.

What helps: Say that a rest is a note of silence which still takes up time. Count it aloud at first, then silently, and use a gesture such as open palms to show it.

Thinking the semibreve is the shortest note because of “semi”

“Semi” means half, so it sounds as though it should be small. In fact the name comes from an older, longer note, the breve, of which it is half.

What helps: Look at the shapes: the semibreve is a hollow oval with no stem and lasts four beats. Each extra feature, a stem, a filled head or a tail, makes the note shorter: minim (two), crotchet (one), quaver (half a beat).

Mixing up how long a note lasts and how high it is

On a stave, notes change shape and also move up and down the page, so children sometimes read a note’s height as its length, or think a hollow note must be higher than a filled one.

What helps: Keep the two jobs apart. The shape of the note, filled or hollow, with a stem or tail, tells you the length. Where it sits on the lines tells you the pitch. Practise reading rhythms on a single line first.

How to help at home

Rhythm of words. Clap the syllables of names and foods. “Pizza” is two quick sounds (ti-ti), “cake” is one (ta) and “banana” is three. Then clap family names and work out which words have the same rhythm.
Walk and clap. Walk steadily around the room, one step for each beat, while clapping a rhythm on top. Keeping the steps steady is the pulse, and the claps are the rhythm. Try clapping quavers (two to a step) and minims (one clap every two steps).
The silent beat game. Clap a four-beat pattern together, then agree to leave out one beat in silence, keeping the counting going. Make the silent beat a different one each time. It is the best practice for reading rests.
Make rhythm cards. Draw four-beat bars on strips of card with a pencil, using simple symbols or shapes if staff notation is not yet familiar, and mix them up. Shuffle, pick two, and clap them in order. Ask your child to write one of their own for you to clap.
Clap the song. Clap the rhythm of the words of a well-known song without singing it, and ask the family to guess the song. Then clap the steady pulse underneath. It shows the difference between the pattern and the beat.

Leads on to

Key Stage 3: Using staff notation accurately
Key Stage 3: Chord symbols, tab and graphic scores