Day 4 - Rest Duration

Rests: periods of silence in a measure.

There are five types of rests, corresponding with each type of note: whole rest, half rest, quarter rest, eighth rest, and sixteenth rest. A whole rest looks like a box descending from the fourth staff line. A half rest looks similar, though it’s a box ascending from the middle staff line. A quarter rest resembles a sideways stylized V almost, and eighth rests and sixteenth rests resemble lines with apostrophes attached to them; like their corresponding notes, they have flags. 

To demonstrate, the lesson uses an example in 4/4 time - four quarter notes with the second replaced with a rest. As such, when played only 3 quarter notes sound with a rest in between. But I think, using the other time signatures from the previous lesson, other examples can be found. For instance, if you had a time signature of 3/2 (3 half notes), and replaced the second with a half rest, only two would sound. Or perhaps with a 6/8 time signature, you could go a bit further, replacing two eighth notes with two eighth rests - therefore only four notes would be played, with two rests in between. And finally, so long as we’re pushing boundaries, why not replace all but one quarter note in a 3/4 time signature with quarter rests (of course, this purely hypothetical scenario would only work if you were writing avant-garde pieces akin to John Cage)? Only one quarter note would be played.