Beat Grouping Demo (preview)

Beat Grouping — Prototype

Each bracket below a bar spans the note(s) that make up one beat. The label under the bracket is the beat number, so you can literally count "1, 2, 3" and see how many notes (and which ones) go with each count.

3/4 — a familiar baseline

Three beats per bar, one crotchet each. One note per beat, one bracket per note.

3/2 — the confusing one

Still three beats per bar — but now each beat is a minim, twice as long as a crotchet. One note still lands on each beat here, but the note itself is "bigger":

3/2 — where it gets tricky: two crotchets = one beat

Here's the case that trips kids up: a minim beat can also be filled by two crotchets instead of one minim. The bracket groups both notes together under a single beat number, so it's visually clear they're one beat, not two:

4/4 — two quavers = one beat, four times

A more everyday case: each beat is a crotchet, and every beat here happens to be split into two quavers.

This is a rough prototype for internal review — brackets are hand-configured per example here, not auto-derived from the time signature yet.