Q: I've got a metronome and I've put the quarter notes (crotchets where I'm from) in the bar. I'm already familiar with some of the other notes like quavers (eighth), minims (half) and semibreves (whole). now what? thanks again
A: ok great. I will assume you know what all of those notes should look like. you pretty much mentioned all the important ones, except for sixteenth notes, which of course are twice as fast as eighth notes. there are some beaming rules for 8th notes and 16th notes, but first i want to make sure you know your 'rests.' a rest is a space where you don't play any note. it is a place holder, to let the time go by, and not play a note. there are all the same kinds of rests as there are notes (rhythm wise). quarter note rest (takes up one beat, or one quarter of the bar), eighth rest, 16th rest, half rest, whole rest. make sure you are familiar with all these. if you image-search any of those online you should see them instantly. So now in your second bar, put 2 quarter notes, then a quarter rest, then another quarter note. we are reading left to right here by the way. and the quarter notes and quarter rests should all be basically the same distance apart. now you can set your metronome (set it to about 70 bpm i guess) and then when you are ready to start, read what you wrote, by clapping. your instrument is a clap. clap when there is a note, don't clap when there is a rest. start whenever you are ready, but what it should sound like is you will be clapping on all the clicks for 6 clicks in a row, then a click with no clap, and then clap on the 8th click. that is what it would sound like if you clapped out what you have written. let me know if this makes sense. if you are confused i might be able to scrape together an image of what you should have written so far.