Write your rhythm
Empty staff
Total: 0 beats
Using the tool
1. Choose the time signature (for example 4/4) and the tempo (BPM) at the top.
2. Add notes with the Whole, Half, Quarter, Eighth, 16th and 32nd buttons.
3. To add rests, turn Rest on and add notes: they come in as rests of the same value.
4. The toggles stay pressed until you release them:
- Dotted: the next note is dotted (half its value again).
- Triplet: the next notes are triplets, or sextuplets for sixteenths.
- Rest: the next notes you add become rests of the same value.
The toggles combine, for example Rest + Triplet + Dotted.
5. For a tie: add the first note, click Tie, then add the second note.
6. For a random rhythm: choose the note values and the difficulty, then click Generate a rhythm (four bars).
7. Click a note on the staff to mark it Down (→) or Up (←), or to clear the mark.
8. Undo with Undo (or Ctrl+Z), empty everything with Clear.
9. Export: PNG, SVG, JSON, copy the image, share.
10. Metronome: click to start or stop a click at the tempo you set.
11. Play rhythm: plays the rhythm back (in time with the metronome if it is running).
12. Loop: tick it to repeat the playback.
13. Tap the rhythm: tap with the space bar or click the staff. You get an accuracy score at the end.
This is a free rhythm generator and rhythm notation maker. Choose the note values you are working on and a difficulty, press Generate a rhythm, and you get four bars on a staff to read, hear and tap back. Or write your own, note by note. It sits alongside the rest of our free guitar tools.
How to practice reading rhythm with it
1. Generate
Pick the note values in Note values, for example quarter + eighth, and a difficulty. Press Generate a rhythm. Four bars appear, in a time signature the tool picks for you.
2. Read, then listen
Clap or count the rhythm before you hear it. Then press Play rhythm and check. Turn the metronome on to hear the beat under it.
3. Tap it back
Press Tap the rhythm and tap each note on the space bar. You get an accuracy score at the end. Generate a new one and go again.
Once a rhythm is in your hands, play it on the guitar: one chord, muted strings, or a single note. Reading a rhythm and playing it are two skills, and this is where they meet.
The note values
Six buttons, from the longest to the shortest. Durations are in beats of a quarter note time signature, such as 4/4.
| Button | Note | Length |
|---|---|---|
| Whole | Whole note | 4 beats |
| Half | Half note | 2 beats |
| Quarter | Quarter note | 1 beat |
| Eighth | Eighth note | 1/2 beat |
| 16th | Sixteenth note | 1/4 beat |
| 32nd | Thirty-second note | 1/8 beat |
Three toggles change the next notes you add. Dotted adds half the value again. Triplet turns halves, quarters and eighths into triplets and sixteenths into sextuplets. Rest turns any value into a rest of the same length. They combine: Rest + Triplet gives you a triplet rest. Tie joins the last note to the next one, and cannot follow a rest. Undo (or Ctrl+Z) takes back the last step.
The random rhythm generator
Note values offers twenty families, from whole + half up to all five values from whole to sixteenth, each with or without rests. The difficulty list has four levels, each in three versions: straight, triplets, and straight and triplets mixed.
| Level | What it adds |
|---|---|
| Simple | Only the note values you picked, in straight time. |
| Intermediate | The same note values. In its triplet and mixed versions, sixteenth note sextuplets join the quarter and eighth note triplets. |
| Complex | Thirty-second notes join any family that has eighths or sixteenths. |
| Master | The same note values as Complex. |
The triplet versions write in 6/8, 9/8 or 12/8. The straight and mixed versions write in 2/4, 3/4 or 4/4, and the mixed ones drop triplets into them. Generating replaces what is on the staff, so export anything you want to keep first.
Rhythm, beat and tempo
The beat is the steady pulse you tap your foot to. The tempo is how fast it goes, in beats per minute, here from 20 to 400. The rhythm is what the notes do on top of it: where they start, how long they last, and where the silences fall. A time signature groups the beats into bars: 4/4 is four quarter note beats, 6/8 is two beats each split in three.
Strumming is rhythm with a direction added. Once you can read a bar of eighths and quarters here, our guitar strumming patterns show how those same rhythms become down and up strokes. To hold the tempo while you play them, use the online metronome, and to hear a rhythm as a drum part, program it on the online drum machine.
Frequently asked questions
What does the random rhythm generator make?
Can I write my own rhythm instead?
How does the tapping score work?
Is this the same as a strumming pattern?
Can I print or share the exercise?
Who made this
Guitar Social Club is the work of Yohann Abbou, a guitar teacher in Paris. He teaches adults, which shapes everything here: people with jobs, limited practice time and a clear idea of the songs they want to play. Most of them can find the chords of a song long before they can read its rhythm, which is why this tool exists. None of the tools asks you to sign up before it works, and the rest of our free guitar tools work the same way.
More about Yohann on his page, and about why Guitar Social Club exists.