Polkas are in 2/4 time which means there are 2 beats per measure and a quarter note (crotchet) gets one beat and an eight note gets a half beat (If you need help understanding these music terms look at Kevin Meixner’s “The Basics of Reading Music”  or ‘How to Read Music“ by Michael Noble, For example, here is how you would count while playing a polka. The vertical lines separate measures.  Listen to Murphy’s Polka (also called Egan’s Polka) by pressing the play button below and repeat the words below the bar. 

one two | one two | one two | one two | one two | one two| one two | one two

The manuscript (written form) would look like this:

Polka Practice Tracks

Murphy’s Polka Sheet Music (Click here to Download Murphy’s Polka PDF sheet music file).