Getting startedPosted 2026-10-27

Reading rhythm: note lengths and time signatures

The fingering pictures tell you which note to play. What is left is how long. Note and rest lengths, dots and ties, how to read a time signature, and how to practise with the metronome.

On FingerNola the fingering pictures tell you which note to play straight away. What is left is how long to play it. Here is just what you need to read rhythm.

Note lengths (when a quarter note is one beat)

Rests follow the same rule: a quarter rest is one beat of silence. On the FingerNola practice screen every note shows its length, such as "quarter" or "eighth".

Dots and ties

• A dot after a note adds half of its length again. A dotted quarter is one and a half beats; a dotted half is three beats.
• A curved line (tie) joining two notes of the same pitch means you do not play the second one again: you add the lengths and hold one long note. The practice screen marks these as "tied" and "hold".
• A group of notes with a 3 above it (a triplet) fits three notes evenly into the space of two.

Reading the time signature

The two numbers at the start of the music are the time signature. The top number tells you how many beats are in each bar; the bottom number tells you which note gets one beat (4 = quarter note, 2 = half note, 8 = eighth note).

Practice order

1. First clap the rhythm without fingering. You can clap along while listening in step ① Melody.
2. In step ② Metronome, drop the speed to 60% and play while counting the beats.
3. Tap a bar number twice to loop just the hard bars.
4. Once it feels easy, turn on "Speed up each round" and work up to 100%.