In newer versions, stepcharts (levels) are rated numerically from 1 to 20, instead of 1 to 10. The rest of this article uses 1 to 10.
Similarly, suppose one is given the steps “Right Left Right. " This is best done by walking on the arrows, shifting your weight to each step as you hit it. This avoids the mistake of keeping your weight on the right arrow the whole time, which would make it easy to tap the left button but would force you to hop to hit the last right button. Most of the beginner songs consist of steps that can be done by some combination of “walking” from arrow to arrow, and tapping an arrow if that step is repeated, and these are the techniques you need to learn before you can do harder songs.
Eighth notes will be colored differently from quarter notes. On the “Note” color setting, quarter notes are red while eighth notes are blue. On the “Vivid” color setting, the color cycles with an offset phase.
Another common pattern involving 16th notes is what is called a dotted 8th note in music theory. This involves arrows that are 3 16th notes apart (3/4 of a beat). They may appear in groups of 3 or 5.
Some songs use triplets. Triplets are notes that fall one third, one sixth, one twelfth, five twelfths, etc. of the way between beats. For example, Burning Heat, and the end of Afronova. If you don’t know triplets, search YouTube for those songs, and it should be fairly clear which notes they are. Practice them. Other songs, such as Healing Vision (Angelic Mix), sometimes use a Stop. This means that the arrows pause for a beat. They literally stop on the screen for a half second or so. Some songs change speed in the middle. Sometimes you might see arrows closer together or farther apart and learn to ignore it, it’s the same tempo, the arrows just change speed on the screen. The specific instance of the speed doubling or halving in the middle of a song is called a soflan, named after the song Soft Landing on the Body on Beatmania IIDX.
