The Eighth Note
This is an eighth note and is worth half a count or a half a beat ( 3 ) in * time.
There are eight eighth notes in one bar of 44 time.
Groups of two or four eighth notes are joined together with a beam;
Beams make reading music easier by helping us distinguish groups of notes.
In * time, eighth notes divide the bar into 8 evenly spaced hits. If the tempo is 3 = 60, each bar of * time has a duration of four seconds. Each eighth note hit has a duration of ½ a second.
Example 41 is played at sixty beats per minute to illustrate the previous paragraph
NOTE: Only the digits 1-4 are used when counting in * time. Extra notes are counted using the following sounds:
e pronounced "ee"
+ pronounced "an"
a pronounced "uh"
r pronounced "er"
At a fixed tempo, eighth notes sound twice as fast as quarter notes because there are twice as many hits in the same space of time.
