Understanding quarter notes
To understand how to play a rock groove, we need to understand that music is ordered into bars. The most common bar of music is divided into four (4) beats, and we feel that quite naturally. Because it is the most commonly used bar, it is called common time.
In a bar of common time there are four beats. In the example below you will see that for each beat there is a note. You will see that because there are four notes, the bar is divided into four. These notes are accordingly called quarter notes.
Look at the example below. This shows a bar of common time containing four quarter notes. The symbol for common time is the ‘C’ at the front of the bar.
Next: Introducing the note of ‘A’, with an ‘open’ string
