Poster 01 — Notes & Rests
Note and rest values with counting and sticking, beamed the way percussionists read them.
Free · Forever free
Theory Reference Posters
Eleven music theory posters — notation, rhythm, meter, dynamics, and tempo, written for percussionists. They print at 11 × 17, a stock frame size, so this is wall art for the price of a frame.
- Theory & Notation
- Free
- PDF + ZIP
- 11 pages across the current family
No account. No required email signup. Direct download when each approved file is connected.
Problem and purpose
Put the language on the wall.
The Theory Reference series walks a percussion student from note and rest values through sixteenth rhythms, meters in three, the staff and clefs, dynamics and accents, tempo terms, roll notation, time signatures, the grand staff, note names, and triplets and duplets. Every poster pairs standard notation with counting and, where it helps, sticking — beamed and worded the way percussionists actually read. The posters print at 11 × 17 inches (Poster 09 is landscape) and scale cleanly to US Letter on any printer's fit-to-page setting.
Each poster carries one concept at wall-reading size, and all eleven share the same notation, counting, and terminology conventions — so what hangs in the room never disagrees with what gets taught.
Who it is for
One reference for the whole room.
- Band directors
- Percussion directors
- Classroom teachers
- Percussion students
- Private studio teachers
- Students practicing at home
Preview gallery
See the teaching system.
Previews render from the same source as the posters; the print PDFs are in Downloads below.
What is included
A complete teaching family.
- Poster 01 — Notes & RestsNote and rest values with counting and sticking, beamed the way percussionists read them.
- Poster 02 — Sixteenth RhythmsThe core sixteenth-note groupings with counts and one common sticking system.
- Poster 03 — Rhythms in ThreeReading and counting in 3/4 and 3/8, including full-measure beaming in 3/8.
- Poster 04 — Staff Road MapThe staff, clefs, and how keyboard percussion reads treble and bass.
- Poster 05 — Dynamics & AccentsDynamic marks and accents: velocity is the engine, height is the runway.
- Poster 06 — Tempo TermsThe tempo spectrum from Largo to Presto, plus metronome marks, rit., accel., and fermata.
- Poster 07 — Rolls & MarksRoll notation, slashes, and common percussion articulation marks.
- Poster 08 — Time SignaturesSimple and compound meters and what the top and bottom numbers mean.
- Poster 09 — The Grand StaffThe grand staff and ledger lines, with middle C on its own line between the staves. Landscape 17 × 11 in.
- Poster 10 — Note NamesLine and space names for treble and bass clef, with the classic memory sentences.
- Poster 11 — Triplets & DupletsTriplets, duplets, and tuplet notation conventions with counting syllables.
Color sets
Pick the one that matches your room.
Every set is all eleven posters on one ground — print-ready PDFs at 11 × 17, plus PNGs at poster size for projecting.
Downloads
Choose only what you need.
No 11 × 17 printer? Every poster scales to US Letter on fit-to-page, and any print shop will run the full size. Both are stock frame sizes.
Poster 02 — Sixteenth Rhythms
The core sixteenth-note groupings with counts and one common sticking system.
Poster 03 — Rhythms in Three
Reading and counting in 3/4 and 3/8, including full-measure beaming in 3/8.
Poster 04 — Staff Road Map
The staff, clefs, and how keyboard percussion reads treble and bass.
Poster 05 — Dynamics & Accents
Dynamic marks and accents: velocity is the engine, height is the runway.
Poster 06 — Tempo Terms
The tempo spectrum from Largo to Presto, plus metronome marks, rit., accel., and fermata.
Poster 07 — Rolls & Marks
Roll notation, slashes, and common percussion articulation marks.
Poster 08 — Time Signatures
Simple and compound meters and what the top and bottom numbers mean.
Poster 09 — The Grand Staff
The grand staff and ledger lines, with middle C on its own line between the staves. Landscape 17 × 11 in.
Poster 10 — Note Names
Line and space names for treble and bass clef, with the classic memory sentences.
Poster 11 — Triplets & Duplets
Triplets, duplets, and tuplet notation conventions with counting syllables.
ZIP
Complete Series Package
All eleven Theory Reference posters in one ZIP archive.
Version and release
Current family status.
- Resource version
- v1.3
- Released
- August 22, 2026
- Last updated
- August 23, 2026
Release notes
- v1.0 · August 22, 2026Approved the eleven-poster series after the accuracy and accessibility review.
- v1.1 · August 22, 2026Renamed Plate to Poster across the artwork, filenames, and this page; the poster faces were re-exported, so v1.1 carries new bytes and new object keys, and the download routes moved from plate-NN to poster-NN ids.
- v1.2 · August 22, 2026Every poster face now carries its version, date, and copyright line (Theory Reference v1.2, August 2026, © 2026 Backwerd Rimshot, LLC) in the fine print, so a printed copy can always be traced to its release.
- v1.2 · August 23, 2026Added four color sets — Tan, Terra Cotta, Brick, and Forest — each all eleven posters on one ground, as print-ready PDFs plus poster-size PNGs. The version stays 1.2 because the artwork did not change: these grounds were already clean in the contrast audit, and every poster in them carries the same v1.2 footer stamp as the individual downloads.
- v1.3 · August 23, 2026Re-rendered the eleven individual posters from the current sources, which carry the accent-line contrast fix, and moved them to v1.3 object keys. The four color sets stay at 1.2: their grounds were already clean in the audit and their artwork did not change. The Complete Series archive has not been rebuilt at 1.3 and is marked asset-pending until it is.
Accessibility notes
Built for practical use.
- Poster text renders as real, selectable text in the PDFs rather than flattened images.
- Color contrast was checked against WCAG ratios during the series' accessibility pass, and no information is carried by color alone.
- Notation diagrams in the source artwork carries written descriptions; the printed posters pair every symbol with its name in text.
- The PDFs are visual posters and are not yet tagged for PDF/UA; formal validation is required before any conformance claim.
Classroom use
Share it with your students.
Free to print and hang in your own classroom and to share with your own students. Do not resell the files, present them as your own, or post the files publicly; share the resource-page link with colleagues instead.
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