Rhythm Flashcards - Free Download

Can you improve your sense of rhythm?

Absolutely! Improving your sense of rhythm involves strengthening your musical sense of the strong and weak beats. Everyone can find a connection to rhythm through singing, dance, drumming, or even tapping your toes as you listen to music. Externalizing rhythm, or feeling it in your body through dancing or clapping, is a great starting point for improving your sense of rhythm. At Hoffman Academy, we offer numerous resources for you to improve your rhythm. Below, you’ll find links to resources including free music rhythm flashcards, rhythm resources, and other links to practice tools for rhythm.

Hoffman Academy has some great online games to help you learn to recognize, read, and play rhythms! Match written rhythms with what you hear in Rhythm Train, and help skateboarder Rae by tapping out the rhythm you see in Rhythm Shredder. Get access to these games and more, plus hundreds of sheet music titles and downloadable music learning resources when you sign up for Hoffman Academy Premium!

In addition to listening to music and identifying strong and weak beats, there are specific games you can play to improve your rhythm. The game “Rhythm Story” teaches students young and old how to improve their sense of rhythm. To play this game, use our Hoffman Academy rhythm cards, or any other written sheet music. Show a simple rhythm and clap or chant it, then have the student clap or chant along with you. It teaches rhythms in the same way that reading a story book to children can help them learn to read.

Visual tools can help people see rhythms. A great tool to use for this exercise is the heartbeat mat and notes. Together, tap the heart on the beat. Listen for silence, or rests, and sound, and notice how sometimes multiple notes occur within a beat. Eventually, those skills turn into dictating and reading rhythms. 

How do you read rhythm for beginners?

You can learn more about How To Read Rhythms in our article here. The key to reading rhythms is to start simple, break the skill down into smaller parts, listen, practice, and repeat. Rhythm in music is essentially the way that even measures of time are subdivided into segments of various lengths. So, the first thing to work on is developing a sense of those even measures of time, or in other words, learning to keep a steady tempo. 

In the Hoffman Method, beginners learn to identify and count rhythms in the same lesson, experiencing music the same way children learn to read. Our Rhythm Words guide contains an all-in-one resource to pair with our  heartbeat mat and notes. The Hoffman Method rhythm words covered in the guide make it easy to count rhythms accurately. The syllables and structure are chosen to keep your eighth notes and sixteenth notes even. 

But what about pieces with time signatures like 6/8? Our article Simple vs Compound Meter: Examples & Free Resources is a great resource for beginners mystified by complex rhythms. Another excellent rhythm resource is our Triplets Theory Pages with Answer Key. This packet includes examples of triplets in simple and compound meters along with strategies for counting them. 

How to teach yourself rhythm?

We recommend finding a music learning method to help you learn rhythm! Along with our articles on How To Read Rhythms and our Learning and Teaching Resources, video lessons can help you learn to identify and count rhythms. If you are teaching yourself, reference guides will show you how to identify and match rhythms. Hoffman Academy’s Simple Meter Rhythm Chart provides an excellent resource for those who need to work on counting rhythms that include eighth notes, dotted notes, and others. As you encounter pieces in compound meter, like 9/8, the Compound Meter Guide will help you understand how to read and play these rhythms. For those struggling to count rhythms, the Rhythm Words Guide untangles the mysteries of counting the beats. 

Are there rules for learning rhythm?

The three following tips will help you learn and improve your sense of rhythm:

• Keep a steady beat. When you have a steady pulse, it becomes easier to count and perform rhythm accurately. You can practice this skill by tapping and clapping along with any music that you hear! 
• Start slow. Many pianists struggle with rushing or dragging, going too fast or too slow when playing complicated rhythms, because they did not start learning the piece slowly and accurately.
• Count and Tap Your Rhythms. When you are starting out, it i’s important to count and tap your rhythms before playing them on the piano. This helps you internalize them, which makes it easier to play them correctly. 

Rhythm flashcards for all levels

Print out these rhythm flashcards on cardstock for best results. We like to keep them in an accordion file sorted by rhythm type.

• Use the heartbeat mat with the rhythm flashcards to dictate songs along with Mr. Hoffman in the lesson videos.
• Use the rhythm flashcards to compose various rhythms with the heartbeat mats. Practice tapping or clapping and saying your composition.
• When playing a difficult passage in your music, try dictating it on the heartbeat mat with your teacher or parent for extra practice.

Suggested Games

King of the Mountain – 2+ Players

• Each player receives two rhythm flashcards to be placed face up in front of them.
• We are a team of mountaineers working to get to the top of a mountain. We get there by taking turns clapping and saying the rhythm correctly, in time with the beat, while the rest of the group makes a steady beat on the floor or lap.
• When all cards have been performed correctly, we get to the top of the mountain!
• Whenever someone makes a mistake, the whole team falls to the bottom of the mountain and we start all over again. Mistakes are what make this game fun.

Giant Rhythm Board Game – 2+ Players

• Need: 1 traditional die and game pieces such as small figures or coins
• Lay out the rhythm flashcards face-up in a “path” on the floor.
• Each player takes a turn rolling the die.
• The player moves the game piece according to the die and performs the rhythm on the flashcard where he or she lands.
• If the player performs the rhythm correctly, they may stay on the card. If not, they return to their last position.
• The first player to finish the path wins.

Rhythms make up the heartbeat of the music we perform and enjoy. Beats, subdivisions, sixteenth notes, and triplets may seem complex at first, but we’ve all heard and experienced them. All it takes is time and practice to learn to play rhythms. Happy practicing!