"Relative durations" refers to note values in rhythm patterns: quarter notes, eighth notes, half notes, etc. In using a sound-before-symbol approach, teachers can effectively use movement to have students experience relative durations of notes.

Simpler approaches can include guiding students to march to different note values. While one-half of the class marches to a quarter note pulse, the other half marches to half notes, pausing between each step. This can be implemented with any note combinations. Similar techniques can be used with body percussion. Dividing the class into thirds, one group can be directed to stomp quarters, as the second group claps eighth notes, and the third patsches sixteenths.

Once students have experienced rhythmic concepts through kinesthetic methods such as movement, speech, and chant, visual representations are much easier for students to understand.

This step—helping students understand the relationship between spoken rhythms and written notation—is an important part of the learning sequence leading to music literacy. After students have taken part in several experiences combining chant or song with stick notation, the traditional notation can begin to be substituted for the stick notation. The transference of these skills will occur more quickly with repeated experiences and activities.