Lesson 17: Rests and Silence

Count rests as carefully as notes.
Keep a steady beat through a song’s rests.

The rests are part of the melody.

A rest is a written silence with a set length. In 4/4, whole, half, quarter and eighth rests last four, two, one and half a beat; keep counting while you breathe.

Count one-two-three-four — each bar still has four beats, and the rest is one of them, silent.

Count “1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and”; stay silent for each written rest.

Play: Hot Cross Buns

Keep each of its three written quarter rests silent for a full beat.

Sarrazin, Music and the Child (2016); transposed reading, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0.

Now play these

Hot Cross Buns: Keep all three written quarter rests exactly one beat long.
Branle Simple: Breathe at phrase ends while keeping the beat steady.

When the rests in your playing are as clean as the notes — full value, exactly placed — move on to Lesson 18.