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Grade Five Music Theory Lesson 5: Time Names of the Rests (US Version)
Click here to see this page with the note names in British English
Rest Shapes
Rests are symbols which tell you to stop playing, and how long to stop for. Rests come in different shapes depending on how long they last for, just like notes do. Rests take the same names as the notes of the same length.
Quarter Rests
1 beat = quarter rest.
The quarter rest is a kind of squiggle which isn’t easy to draw nicely. If you find it difficult, you might prefer to use another version, which looks like this.
Eighth Rests
1/2 beat = eighth rest.
The eighth rest looks a bit like a number 7, with a circle at its tip. If you look again at the “easy” quarter rest, you’ll notice that it is, in fact, a back-to-front eighth rest.
Sixteenth Rests
1/4 beat = sixteenth rest.
The sixteenth rest looks a lot like the eighth rest, but it’s got 2 tails, just like the sixteenth note has.
Half Rests
2 beats = half rest.
The half rest is a small, coloured-in block. The half rest sits on the middle line of the staff.
Whole Rests
4 beats = whole rest.
The whole rest is the same size block as the half rest, but its position is different - it hangs off the second line from the top.
If you find it hard to remember the positions of the 2 and 4 beat rests, remember that that 4 is a higher number than 2, so a 4-beat rest is higher up the staff than a 2 beat rest.
Whole rests are also used as “whole bar” rests. This means that the whole bar should be silent, even if the bar doesn’t contain exactly 4 beats.
Exercises for this Lesson >>>
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