Tap to wake up the sound
Your iPad needs one tap before it will let the metronome and the piano notes play. Go ahead.
The Counting Lab
You already play great by ear. This week is about the one thing your ear can't do for you yet: counting out loud while you play. Work through this on your own. Read it, tap the buttons, say things out loud. Nobody's watching — be loud.
Every measure is the same length
Here's the thing that's easy to miss. A measure stuffed full of notes and a measure with one long note take the exact same amount of time. The notes don't make the box bigger. The clock keeps ticking the same either way.
Tap each box to hear it. They all last the same — even the lonely one.
Be the metronome
Set it to 100. Press start. Count the numbers out loud with the clicks — louder than feels normal. The big red "1" is the start of every measure.
Then flip the switch to add the "and" between every beat: 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and. Those little "ands" are where the fast notes live.
How long does each note last?
Tap each card to hear how long it rings. Count along while it plays.
Notice: you hold the whole note for all four counts. You don't replay it. You hit it once and keep counting 1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and while it rings.
The rest that trips you in Thunder
A rest is a silence you still have to count. It's a note's quiet cousin. The hard part: silence has length too, and you can't hear yourself counting it unless you say it out loud.
Here's the gotcha. For a while the song rests for a whole beat at the top of each measure. Then in a later measure it switches to resting for only half a beat — an eighth rest. That's the exact spot you lose the beat every single time.
Hear the difference:
Your practice checklist
Tap each box as you finish it. Do these before Sunday.
You don't have to be perfect. You just have to count out loud and stay with the click. See you Sunday at 9.