First, learn the rhythmic names of the notes, THIS WILL HELP ALOT!!!

whole note = four beats long

half note = two beats long

quarter note = one beat long

eighth note half = a beat long

sixteenth note = quarter of a beat.



Traditional Counting System:

Tap your foot up and down.

Any note that begins on "down" of the foot tap is a number.
Any note that begins on "up" of the two part foot tap is "&" - pronounced "and."
So, in counting, we give every note that is a quarter or greater a number.

NOTE:

In our system, we only say the first # if the note is held for more than one beat (ie, half and whole notes.)

To count 8th (eighth) notes, we say the beat number (1, 2, 3, or 4), but add an and, to account for the notes that fall inbetween the numbers. So it looks like this (ignore the nonsense syllabes):



16th notes are similar, except that we add the number, the syllable ee, and , then another ee. This looks like this:



I'll add more as I go along. This was just what I could do in 10 minutes