Beams and flags · From Zero to Mozart

Flags and beams do the same job: they mark notes shorter than a quarter. A note standing on its own gets a flag; a group of them gets a beam — a thick bar across the stems — instead. The number of flags or beams tells you how far the beat is divided.

one flag or beam = an eighth note — two per beat. Count "1 and".
two = a sixteenth note — four per beat. Count "1 e and a".
three = a thirty-second note. Rare; recognise it and move on.

Eighths — one beam

64 bpm

Four eighth notes, joined in pairs by a single beam. Two fit in each beat. Count '1 & 2 &'.

Sixteenths — two beams

60 bpm

Eight sixteenth notes, in two beamed groups of four — the same two beats as the eighths above, cut twice as fine. Count '1 e & a 2 e & a'.

Beams show you the beat

Notes are beamed in beat-groups — a bar of eighths in 4/4 is beamed in pairs, one pair per beat; sixteenths in fours. So the beaming itself is a map of where each beat starts. When a run of small notes looks like a wall, find the breaks between beam groups — each break is a new beat.

66 bpm

Eight eighths in one 4/4 bar — beamed as four pairs. Four groups, four beats. The gap between each pair is exactly where the next beat lands: 1, 2, 3, 4.

Eighths and sixteenths together

58 bpm

Beat 1: two eighths (one beam). Beat 2: four sixteenths (two beams). Beat 3: two eighths. Beat 4: one quarter. The beam count on each group tells you how many notes to fit into that beat.

The usual mistake

Reading a beam as "play all these in one bow." A beam is rhythm only — it groups notes by time, and nothing else. Whether beamed notes share a bow is a separate mark: a curved slur line (next lesson). A beam and a slur can sit over the same notes and mean two different things.

Try

Clap a slow, steady four. Fit two claps into each beat (eighths), then four (sixteenths), without letting the underlying four speed up. The beam count is just telling you how many claps go in each beat.