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I am learning to play Scriabin’s 5 Preludes Op. 16 No. 4. The piece is in 3/4 but the first measure has a quarter note, two eighth notes, and then an eighth note + dotted eighth + sixteenth. This would add up to 3.5 beats instead of three. Is the last beat some sort of uneven triplet? Would appreciate help on how to count count this measure.

first two measures of Scriabin’s Op. 16 No. 4 in Eb Minor

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Yes, it's an uneven triplet. Most of the scores I've seen (IMSLP, for example) don't explicitly mark it as such, but here's one that does:

Scriabin op. 16, no. 4, mm. 1–3
(Image source: IMSLP, Philippe Hézaine edition)

To count it, think of dividing each beat into six parts.

Rewrite in sextuplets

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    For the second line in the question’s image, the alignment with the lower staff is inconsistent.
    – Elements In Space ♦
    Commented Oct 2 at 6:22
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    Do you have any idea why most editions omit the triplet mark? I understand when it's omitted in repetition of a recurring pattern, but it's strange at the very beginning of a piece.
    – user1079505
    Commented Oct 2 at 7:27
  • @user1079505 I don't, but a glance through the first edition, all five pieces, revealed only one triplet marked as such — a quarter-note, eighth-note rhythm, where there's no beam to clarify the rhythmic grouping. There are plenty of eighth-note triplets throughout, but none of them are explicitly marked.
    – Aaron
    Commented Oct 2 at 17:57
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enter image description here

Aaron's answer as in the first example makes sense, but my first thought was maybe it meant the second example.

But a missing 3 triplet figure is more plausible than missing beam! Especially when considering that after the first inclusion of triplet 3 figures a score often omits them through the rest of the music.

Just to be clear, I agree with Aaron's answer that it should be a triplet figure, but I also wanted to point out a dotted sixteenth would fix the figure too.

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    One would also think that a missing beam would have been corrected in some edition.
    – Aaron
    Commented Oct 2 at 5:31
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    @Aaron One might also think that a missing triplet sign would have been corrected in more editions…
    – gidds
    Commented Oct 2 at 10:03

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