How to sync Beamer notes and pause commands?

Question

I want to use \pause in my lecture notes, and I want a notes-only version that uncovers different notes before each pause. I thought of using the \note<.>{"my note"} syntax, because my understanding of '.' is that it refers to the current beamerpauses counter. But when I do this, as in this example, I don't get the desired effect. In fact I don't get all the notes:

\documentclass[t, 14pt]{beamer}
\setbeameroption{show only notes} 

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\begin{itemize}
\item First things first
\note[item]<.>{Say ``first things first''}
\pause
\item Second things second
\note[item]<.>{Say ``second things second''}
\pause
\item Third things third
\note[item]<.>{Say nothing...}
\pause
\item 4th thing
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}

\end{document}

This results in:

Notice the first note ('Say "first thing first"') is not even present. The second note exists before the second bullet point.

I looked into dropping the \pause command and using \note<+> commands, as suggested in a comment to this answer, but it only leads to pauses in my notes and not on the slides.

How do I have one note per pause command? How do I get them to pause in both the presentation and the notes mode?

I should also point out that if I use \note<1>{...} and \note<2>{...} I do get the desired effect. I just don't want to keep track of how many \pause and overlay commands I've made, so I guess I should ask

How do you easily have one note per pause command?

Answer 1

Instead of \pause, you could use the overlay specification for itemize:

\documentclass[t, 14pt]{beamer}
\setbeameroption{show only notes} 

\begin{document}

\begin{frame}
\begin{itemize}[<+->]
\item First things first
\note<.>[item]{Say ``first things first''}
\item Second things second
\note<.>[item]{Say ``second things second''}
\item Third things third
\note<.>[item]{Say nothing...}
\item 4th thing
\end{itemize}
\end{frame}

\end{document}