Counting with Subdivisions

Syllables for counting eighth notes, sixteenth notes and triplets.

Here we show the standard verbalization for quarter, eight and sixteenth notes. Your voice, and the consonants that it makes, is an important percussion instrument. So, for musicality, precision in diction matters - in the sense of rhythmic articulation, not formal speech. Consider, for example, Sinatra.

For concreteness we work with counts that go from 1 to 4 (aka common time), but it works just as well for counts going from 1 to 3 (waltz time) etc.

Counting with quarter notes

Here this is just a technical way of saying count in the simplest way possible, with one count per beat and no subdivisions. Try repeately counting to four, One-Two-Three-Four-One-Two-Three..., in a steady, rhythmic, metronomic way. No extra pause between the Four and the next One!

1 2 3 4

Counting with eighth note subdivisions

Now insert an ‘and’ between every count - without changing the speed of the counts. So the verbalization is now One-and-Two-and-Three-and-Four-and-One-and... Symbolically we write this count like this:

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

Counting with sixteenth note subdivisions

Now insert three syllables between counts, giving One-e-and-a-Two-e-and-a-Three-e-and-a-Four-e-and-a.

1 e + a 2 e + a 3 e + a 4 e + a

Note that each of these counts progressively refines the preceding one:

• The quarter note count is the basic skeleton

• The eighth note count adds ‘ands’ between the quarter notes - but the four quarter note counts i.e. the numbers are still there. Hence it is a refinement of the quarter note count.

• The sixteenth note count refines the eighth note count by adding more syllables -- ‘e’ and ‘a’ -- in between the eighth note counts. But note that in addition to the qquarter note counts still being present here, the eighth note counts are also present -- because the ‘ands’ (the denoted +) are still in the same place, midway between the quarter note counts.

All of these represent different ways to count one measure of four beats.

Exercise: count out loud one measure of quarter notes, followed immediately by one measure of eighth notes, followed immediately by one measure of sixteenth notes; at the same time, tap your dominant foot rhythmically along with the quarter note counts:

| 1       2       3       4       |  # measure with quarters  
| 1   +   2   +   3   +   4   +   |  # measure with eighths 
| 1 e + a 2 e + a 3 e + a 4 e + a |  # measure with sixteenths 

The chart shows the progressive refinements of the counts.

Counting with triplet subdivisions

These can be counted as:

One-trip-let-Two-trip-let-Three-trip-let-Four-trip-let

or

One-and-a-Two-and-a-Three-and-a-Four-and-a