Finished Sheet Music Ebook 8th August 2011

LESSON TWO - PULSE

The heartbeat of Music

What will you learn in Lesson 2?

In this lesson you will learn:

• How to read the speed of a piece of music and why this is so important


• How to read the grouping of the beats through the time signatures, bars
  and barlines

What is pulse?

Pulse (noun) = the rhythmic recurrence of strokes

If you don’t have a pulse, you are in trouble.... if your music doesn’t have a

pulse it runs the same risk. A sense of pulse (otherwise known as the beat)

provides the heartbeat of a piece of music.

In music there are 2 main decisions that have to be made about pulse that

need to be shown in sheet music....

1.The Speed

2.The Grouping

Letʼs have a look at how these 2 decisions are made and written down.