Eighth rest

A short building block of silence in everyday use

The rests follow the same logic of halving as the notes. The page Rhythm assigns them to one another: the eighth rest corresponds to the eighth note and lasts half a beat in 4/4. Two eighth rests make a quarter rest.

The symbol library describes the sign as a diagonal stroke with a flag. It warns of a confusion with the old form of the quarter rest, which looks like a mirrored eighth rest.

On the beat or on the “and”

When counting eighth notes you slip an “and” aloud between the numbers: “1 and 2 and 3 and 4 and”. An eighth rest occupies one of these syllables. If it falls on the beat, the syllable stays silent and the first note comes only on the “and”. That is exactly what the table shows: rest, eighth, quarter, half fill the bar, and the first note lies between the beats.

Rhythm between the beats

The article Understanding and counting syncopation describes what happens when a stress is placed where none is expected, typically on an “and”, and the expected stress is dropped. The pulse stays unchanged, only the stress is shifted against it. An eighth rest on the beat is a simple means to this: the beat stays empty, the note follows half a beat later.

The article's most important counting rule holds here too: count the subdivision aloud throughout and play only the syllables on which a note actually falls. If you leave out the silent syllables, you lose exactly the reference that makes the rhythm audible.

An example from the sheet music archive

Voice and piano

• Der Tod und das Mädchen Franz Schubert, D. 531 · voice and piano · 2 pages

  In bar 8 the vocal line begins with a half rest and a quarter rest. Then follows an eighth rest, and only after that the girl enters with an eighth note, which in turn leads as an upbeat into bar 9. The eighth rest therefore holds back the entry by an eighth note, in alla breve a quarter of a beat (the half note is the beat).

Typical mistakes

Rhythm Dictation names the treatment of rests as the third common mistake: a rest is not nothing but a measured stretch of time. That also holds for the short eighth rest. The way out is to speak the rest along like a note and leave out only the playing.