The Language of Music

More Advanced Note Lengths: Beyond Twos and Fours

You may have noticed that all the rhythms I’ve shown you so far have been based on multiplying and dividing by two (two, four, eight, and sixteen). This is not the only option, but it is the most common in western music. The Second most common is playing with groups of three. There are a couple of ways to do this.

Note Length Exercise 4: Dotted Notes

One way to play with groups of three is to use dotted notes. A dotted quarter note is equal in length to three 8^th notes, rather than the usual two. A dotted 8^th note is equal in length to three 16^th notes. In other words, When you add a dot to a note, it makes the note one and a half times as long. Below are an examples of dotted notes. Try playing these rhythms as you did for previous note length exercises. If you have trouble, don’t worry. The exercises in chapter 5 will help you develop rhythmic skill.

Dotted Quarter Notes

Dotted Half Notes

Dotted 8^th Notes

Note Length Exercise 5: Triplets

Another way to use the number “three” when building rhythms is with triplets. Triplets divide the beat into three evenly spaced notes, rather than the usual two or four. Normally there are two 8^th notes per beat, but the “3” on top of the notes tells you there are three 8^th notes per beat. The same thing applies to 16^th notes, where normally there would be two 16^th notes, now there are three. To play 8^th note triplets, it might be helpful to count to three repeatedly. Your hands tap every number, but your foot only taps on "One". Listen to the examples below to see how this sounds.

8^th Note Triplets

16^th Note Triplets

Quarter Note Triplets

Quarter note triplets are harder because they don’t line up with every beat (feel free to skip to Swing for now). If you begin a quarter note triplet on the first beat, there won’t be a note that lines up with the second beat. The other two notes in the quarter note triplet are played before and after the second beat.

If you are having trouble with the precise timing of quarter note triplets, it is useful to think about them in terms of 8^th note triplets. Quarter note triplets sound the same as playing every other 8^th note triplet. Below I’ve written 8^th note triplets with every other note accented. If you play only the accented notes, it will sound the same as quarter note triplets. When playing difficult rhythms with rests, it is helpful to not only think about the notes you are playing, but also think about the notes you're not playing, and play them silently in your head.

Half Note Triplets

Half note triplets are even harder, for the same reason. If you start on the first beat, the half note triplet won’t line up with the second, third, or fourth beat. Half note triplets are the same as playing every other quarter note triplet.

Note Length Exercise 6: Swing

I mentioned earlier that when playing consecutive 8^th notes, one 8th note will line up with the beat (if we consider the beat to be quarter notes), and the next note will fall exactly halfway between two beats. This is not always true. The first 8^th note will always line up with the beat, but in some songs, all the 8^th notes that fall between the beat are delayed slightly. How much it is delayed depends on the song, but two consecutive 8^th notes can often sound like the first and third notes in an 8^th note triplet. Instead of writing every sequence of 8^th notes as 8^th note triplets with a rest in the middle, musicians write this as normal 8^th notes, but they tell everyone in the band to “swing” the 8^th notes. Swing originated with popular jazz in the 1920s and 1930s where 8^th notes were “swung” in most of the songs. If a song uses evenly spaced 8^th notes, they are referred to as “straight” 8^th notes. The two lines written below should sound the same. The first line uses triplets, the second line tells you to “swing” the 8^th notes.

To learn how to “swing” your 8^th notes, it is best to listen to swing music and copy the way swing bands play their 8^th notes. Even though swung 8^th notes started in a specific genre, almost all modern genres use swung 8^th notes every once in a while. It is useful to be able to switch between straight and swing 8^th notes.

Note Length Exercise 7: Advanced Beat Divisions

Of course, it is possible to divide the beat using numbers other than two or three. Numbers like five, seven, nine, eleven, and thirteen (and more) are possible. Dividing a beat into five evenly spaced notes would result in quintuplets, for example. These are not common. They occur in experimental music, made by musicians who have an extremely high fluency in rhythm, or the folk music of some non-western cultures. Even if you don’t want to play rhythms like this, learning these obscure beat divisions builds fluency. You can then decide whether you like the sounds. I won’t explain all of the beat divisions in detail. I will just leave you with an exercise I used to play daily.

For this exercise, I set the metronome to tap once every four beats, so the metronome is tapping out whole notes. I then play a scale using every possible division of that whole note, from one to sixteen. Dividing by one is just playing whole notes. Dividing by sixteen is playing 16^th notes. It gets hard when you get to numbers like five, seven, nine, eleven, thirteen, and fifteen. Again, this is unnecessary for the vast majority of music.