I have a question about sheet music for D. Scarlatti's sonata K56. The time signature of the piece is 12/8, but in the very first measure there are actually 12.5 beats in the upper staff, including the 1/8 rest at the beginning. In the lower staff there are 12 beats as expected.
My question is, how this should be properly played. There are basically 2 possible solutions:
- Reduce the duration of the rest at the beginning from 1/8 to 1/16. This would bring the number of beats to the desired number of 12. However, this would also create a partial overlap between the C3 and C5 notes, which was maybe not intention of the composer.
- Make the first measure slightly longer. This would be equivalent to adding a 1/16 rest to the lower staff.