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enter image description here

Here is an example of what I am referencing. Here is how it is supposed to sound: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1G1tNWeMQ_IADvZ8JITKzK0WIUDPYvMSA/view?usp=sharing

I am looking for assistance in properly arranging this to maintain the sound, but also helping understand why, with respect to note values. I believe this is 3/8 time as presently written? I am looking to maintain 3/4 time.

If I am correct, in the tuplet, the first note should be dotted, then the second should be a regular crotchet?

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  • Link is not working here (owner did not allow playing/downloading).
    – Tom
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 11:29
  • Since posting my answer it has occurred to me that the piece might well be in two or four rather than three. If the first note is the upbeat...?
    – Old Brixtonian
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 12:35
  • Link might be working again.
    – Flashpoint145
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 15:45
  • you may just notate eighth notes and write: swing
    – Albrecht Hügli
    Commented Oct 18, 2020 at 8:22

2 Answers 2

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I can't open your link, but the notation is wrong, as you suspect!

It would most commonly be written in one of these ways:

enter image description here

(The fifth note in the third line should of course be an A!)

There's another - simpler - way to notate it if the style of the piece is jazz-influenced, but it looks more slip-jiggy to me.

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    Would the second line be played differently from the first? I think the second option depicted here is wrong
    – Todd Wilcox
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 19:17
  • Sorry. I was thinking you were the OP. I've deleted those comments. Yes, the second option would be played differently. It is only 'wrong' if triplets really were what they wanted. They asked about using dots. I showed how it'd look written in a dotted rhythm.
    – Old Brixtonian
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 23:43
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Conventionally, a triplet is played so that its three consituent beats take the time of two "normal" beats. So as notated, you're right; each of those "triplets" consisting of an eighth and a sixteenth note would be played in the same amount of time as two sixteenth notes. Which means that all of your bars, as notated, are three eighth notes long.

The way around this is to use a quarter note and an eighth note in the triplet instead, like so:

enter image description here

The bracket is used when a tuplet group isn't beamed, to clearly denote which beats are included in the tuplet.

The image above is copied from the Finale blog, but most music notation software worth its salt will be able to create something similar.

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  • If anyone can get this rhythm to work in ABC notation, feel free to edit out the image I've used. I couldn't get it to render at all on this site, and while I could get it to work in the abcjs editor, the brackets didn't render there.
    – Michael Seifert
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 11:50
  • regarding the ABC code, see How can I render “uneven” tuplets in ABC notation?. The key is "(3:2:2" before the note specifications.
    – Aaron
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 13:09
  • Also, if you're not already familiar, you can use the ABCjs formatting sandbox on Meta to test out code.
    – Aaron
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 13:17
  • @Aaron: Yeah, I'm having trouble getting it to render properly. I get some mess with mordents & missing the triplets.
    – Michael Seifert
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 13:19
  • Most likely you're running into this bug. To render, empty your browser's cache and then refresh the page. (The bug is more general than the report suggests, but I haven't yet figured out the problem in full generality.)
    – Aaron
    Commented Oct 16, 2020 at 13:22

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