Okuzeka
Music vocabulary · Notation and Reading Music

Rest

Meaning in music, with examples

/rest/nounCore term

In music, rest means: A symbol in notation that tells you to be silent for a set length of time, such as a quarter rest or a whole-bar rest.

In Turkish: sus, es

How it is used

Each note length has a matching rest: whole rest, half rest, quarter rest, eighth rest. Teachers remind students to 'count the rests'; orchestral players may have many bars' rest before they come in.

Example sentences

  1. You came in too early; there's a quarter rest before the last phrase.

  2. The trombones have twenty bars' rest, so count carefully.

Common collocations

  • quarter rest
  • whole rest
  • count the rests
  • bars' rest
  • eighth rest
  • quarter noteA note that lasts a quarter of a whole note. In 4/4 time, one quarter note usually equals one beat.
  • barA short section of music that contains a fixed number of beats, shown on the page between two vertical lines called bar lines.
  • noteA single musical sound with a particular pitch and length, or the written symbol that shows it. In English, notes are named with the letters A to G.
  • rhythmThe pattern of long and short sounds and silences in music, and how they are placed in time against the beat.
  • sheet musicMusic written or printed in notation on paper or a screen, so that musicians can read and play it.

This word in other fields

The same English word can have a different meaning in another field:

More terms: Notation and Reading Music

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