Counting Rhythms

A rhythm on a staff, and you write the counts underneath it the way you would pencil them into a part: one count under every note and every rest, from a palette of 1 2 3 4, e, & and a, plus trip, o and let for triplets.

Rests get counted too. A rest is a counted silence rather than nothing, and learning that is most of what counting is for.

A triplet can be counted two ways and both are marked right: trip-o-let, or the beat number in place of trip — 2-o-let. Get one wrong and the answer shows both, so it never teaches that a correct counting is wrong.

Five levels, the same ladder the reading tool uses, from quarters and eighths up to triplets and sixteenths. A round scores a point per correct count out of however many that rhythm needs, so the maximum rises and falls with what is actually on the page.

Settings change what you are reading past: one repeated note or varied pitches, ledger lines, the clef — percussion, treble, bass, alto, or none at all — and whether you may hear the rhythm before you answer, which a teacher can turn off to make it a reading exercise.