pinch - Posted - 04/08/2009:  04:57:28

What does the number three over these barred notes mean? Does it affect how they are supposed to be played?



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Simplify, less is more.

tiquose - Posted - 04/08/2009:  05:02:44

Those are triplets. In the space of time that you'd otherwise play TWO notes (two eighths, two sixteenths, etc. according to the number of "tails" on the notes) you play THREE, evenly spaced

Janet
"Curiosity killed the cat but satisfaction brought it back." -my grandmother, Bertha Morgan Nelson

M-D - Posted - 04/08/2009:  08:51:52

Once you hear a triplet, you'll always know what one is to sound like. It's very distinctive.

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M-D

Old-Time, All the Time

Music is found in the space between the notes -- in the silence between the chords. Get your spaces right, and you''ve got it. ~ Albert Greenfield

JohnnaDee - Posted - 04/08/2009:  09:27:18

pinch

If you look closely in the second example, the triplet has a double beam...like 16th notes. So that set of triplets would fall in the same amount as one 8th note.

A whole measure with 1 beat triplets would have four sets of triplets.

A whole measure with 1/2 beat triplets would have 8 sets of triplets. (you wouldn't see it printed out this way very much...just an example)

So the third example would have all 5 notes falling in one beat..with the first three in the first half of the beat and the last 2 sixteenth notes falling into the second half. (If you use a metronome and subdivide the beat, play it really slow, you'll figure it out mathematically)


Good luck!
Johnna

TimK - Posted - 04/08/2009:  09:34:34

If it were 4 sixteenth notes, it would be played : one e and ah

The five notes as written would be played: triplet and ah

TimK

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Wrangle up yer mouth parts, drag yer banjer out, tune yer ole geetar till it twangs right stout, for the snow is on the mountain and the wind is on the plain, so we''ll cut the chimny''s moanin with a livelier refrain.

ptigue - Posted - 04/08/2009:  12:19:44

Yeah, you'll know a triplet when you hear it.

I heard someone describe it like this (within a 4/4 measure)

Quarter notes sound like "Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach"

Eighth notes sound like "Mozart, Mozart, Mozart, Mozart"

Triplets sound like "Beethoven, Beethoven, Beethoven, Beethoven"

and 16ths sound like "Shostakovich, Shostakovich, Shostakovich, Shostakovich"

and so on, and so on...

mudbug - Posted - 04/08/2009:  13:01:45

The first three notes in "76 Trombones" , coresponding to the word "seventy".

rastewart - Posted - 04/08/2009:  13:38:52

ptique and mudbug, great mnemonic examples--I'm going to try to remember those, in case I ever need to work on those concepts with my youngun, or with some hypothetical future grandchild.

~Rich

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... in savage and impenetrable darkness with chaos and pandemonium before me, and the demon madness of that night-baying viol behind me.--H.P. Lovecraft

JohnnaDee - Posted - 04/08/2009:  14:10:57

Would that be Hy-po-thetical...or Hypothet-ic-al? (5 syllables?.......)sorry

Um..I'm done now!
J

bsed - Posted - 04/08/2009:  17:53:45

quote:

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Originally posted by ptigue

Yeah, you'll know a triplet when you hear it.

I heard someone describe it like this (within a 4/4 measure)

Quarter notes sound like "Bach, Bach, Bach, Bach"

Eighth notes sound like "Mozart, Mozart, Mozart, Mozart"

Triplets sound like "Beethoven, Beethoven, Beethoven, Beethoven"

and 16ths sound like "Shostakovich, Shostakovich, Shostakovich, Shostakovich"

and so on, and so on...

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Skunkhound - Posted - 04/10/2009:  15:47:47

Ditto!

Say it might have been a fiddle, or it could have been the wind.............