Put the halfway point in your voice

Say the spaces before filling them

Say 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 & with equal spacing. First play only the numbers. Then keep speaking the same count while playing only the & positions.

● attack · — hold · · silence. The quiet high click is the pulse.

Your voice supplies the missing ruler

Subdivision divides one pulse into equal parts. Eighths split it in two. Sixteenths split it in four: 1 e & a. None of those syllables adds another beat.

Do not speed up the numbers when the notes become shorter. Add more evenly spaced positions between the same numbered beats.

Play the & of 2 and the & of 4

Keep all eight count positions. Select the two halfway attacks requested, and use playback to check that the main clicks remain steady.

One beat, four equal places

Each gap is a sixteenth note when the quarter note is the beat. The next numbered beat arrives after all four gaps.

Where does & fall in 1 e & a?

Takeaways

• Keep the numbers steady; insert equal subdivisions between them.