The Quarter Rest - Piano Notes

Today I will show you how to read piano notes with musical rests. Let's first review what we've learned so far.

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Music Rests in General

Welcome back!
When we discussed rhythm we divided the beats into groups. Each group ended with a barline. So in a time signature of 4/4 we had a bar line after every four beats.
Within those groups we could play tones with different lengths. We could measure the length of those tones through counting the number of the beats which takes until the tone is through.

Need a reminder? Check out the rhythm basics page.

"Music and silence combine strongly because music is done with silence, and silence is full of music. ~Marcel Marceau".

Now, If would always produce a sound we would get tired after a while from the amount of information we produce and we're going to exhaust our listeners as well with loads of musical information.
further more it will be rather crowded and boring to always make sound.
Leopold Stokowski actually said that "a painter paints pictures on canvas, but musicians paint their pictures on silence."
What I like about this saying is that you play the silence. You understand that it provides a beautiful contrast to the sound.

Basically, having breaks in music provides the melody some validity. Or in other words, the musical rests in music allow a musical piece to breathe.

So What's the meaning of rests?

A rest is a sign of silence.

In the coming few lessons I will show you three different rests with three different lengths.
When you see a rest you have to reconize how long it is and then to skip those number of beats. This will become more clear to you as you procceed reading.

The Quarter Rest

Let's start! I'll first show you how to read recognize rests of one quarter note. The sign looks like this:
A Quarter Rest

You can hear how I play this rest in a musical pattern in the next example .
rhythm pattern with a quarter rest.

The second beat and the fourth one should remain silent in the second bar in this example.
Or maybe better say should be played silently.

And here's a musical piece where the quarter rest plays an important roll, the fifth symphony by Beethoven.
Try to play it and don't forget to count 1.. 2.. 3.. 4..

A Quarter Rest in the fifth symphony by Beethoven

Now here are a few cool free piano sheets from ebay with different musical rests.

In the next two musical pieces you'll have to read and play the quarter rest. Give it a try!

The Little Bird	Download	Play
Jump Around	Download	Play

Terrific! let's continue...

In the next piano lessons we're going to learn about the half rest and the whole rest.

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Return from Quarter Rest to Piano Notes Page

Piano Notes Lessons
1. Intro	14. Dynamic Signs
2. Piano Keyboard Layout	15. Gradual and Sudden Dynamic Changes
3. Playing Melodies by Ear	16. Eighth Notes
4. Rhythm	17. The Sharp Sign
5.The Treble Staff	18. The Flat Sign
6. Draw a Treble Clef	19. The Natural Sign
7. The Bass Clef	20. Accent Marks
8.The Grand Staff	21. Music Terms for Beginners
9. Harmonic Intervals	22. Sixteenth Notes
10. The Dotted Half Note	23. Tempo Marks
11.The Quarter Rest	24. The Dotted Notes
12. The Half Rest	25. Triplets
13. The Whole Rest	26. Double Accidentals
27. A Review of Musical Terms