Printable worksheet
Rhythm dictation worksheet
Free printable rhythm dictation worksheet: empty bars with a counting grid for teacher-played rhythms, plus a key showing what to play.
Rhythm dictation worksheet
Sheet #
Name Date Score /
Answer key
Rhythm dictation worksheet · Sheet #
How to use it
- A teacher or partner needs the answer page. Choose a difficulty and time signature type, then press New worksheet and print both pages.
- The teacher plays or claps the rhythm on the answer page after a bar of count-in, twice through, at the suggested tempo.
- The pupil writes the rhythm in the empty bars, using the counting grid printed under them to place each note.
- Compare the pupil’s answer with the printed rhythm and counting.
Rhythm dictation trains the ear to hear a rhythm and the hand to write it. This generator makes the question sheet and the teacher’s key.
How it works#
- The question page has two or four empty bars with the time signature and a counting grid beneath them.
- The answer page shows the rhythm the teacher should play, with the counting written under each note and bars separated by lines.
- The teacher plays the rhythm at a steady pulse. The pupil writes it into the bars.
The worksheet makes no sound itself. Clap or play from the answer page, and do not show it to the pupil until the dictation is done.
Difficulty levels#
- Easy: two bars of whole, half, quarter and eighth notes with quarter rests, in 2/4, 3/4, 4/4 or 6/8.
- Medium: two bars; adds sixteenth notes, more rests and dotted halves, and 9/8 in compound time.
- Hard: four bars; adds dotted rhythms, 5/4 and 12/8.
The counting grid#
Under the empty bars the sheet prints one label for each place a note could start: just the beats for rhythms made of quarter notes and longer, the eighth-note “&” positions too if eighths occur, and the “e” and “a” positions of sixteenth notes in simple time. Compound rhythms use 1 & a. If a rhythm includes sixteenth notes the whole grid uses the finer spacing.