Triplets and irregular groupings???

[The Fury]

O.K so I know that when you see three 8th notes grouped together then you should play all three notes in the time of one 8th note, right?

How about when you see two 16th notes and an 8th note grouped together in a triplet, at what speed are you supposed to play these?

How about groups of 6 notes, I read somewhere that you would play those 6 notes in the time of 4 notes. How do you know, when all the indication you get is a 6 under the notes?

The groupings are relativly easy to work out when they are all of the same length of note (all 8ths for example) But how do you know what to do when they are all of different lengths? (That goes for all types of groupings)

Thanks.

[BloodXero]

let me set you straight. three eighth notes grouped as a triplet act as one quarter note beat. 2 sixteenth's and an eighth shouldn't be grouped as a triplet because the take up one beat. or is it grouped with another two sets of sixteenth's and and an eighth's. what you should do to figure it out is add up all of the notes inside of the bracket and figure out how many beats the triplet or 6 thingy takes up, then compare it to the number of beats you have left after you take out all of the other non-grouped notes. here's an example:

this is from the outro solo of "Iron Man"

|-------------------------------------|
|-------------------------------------|
|-------------------------------------|
|---4----5----4----5----4h-5p-4-------|
|--------------------------------7----|
|-------------------------------------|
[__3__]
[____3____] [______3______]

the notes with 4 spaces after them are quarter notes,if they have two then they're eighth notes. the 3 grouped eight notes take up one beat (shown by the upper bracket), and the one beat that they form is grouped with two other quarter notes to take up two beats. the other group of quarter notes (the first one) takes up the otehr two beats (4/4 measure).

[The Fury]

O.K thanks. I see what you mean about counting up the rest of the bar to see how long they should last.

As for the grouping of two 16th notes and an 8th note, I see them a lot, some look like your diagram (very nice by the way) others are simply on their own.

Also, I've got another guestion. How is it possible to group 2 notes together with a three over the top? Or 5 notes with a three, etc...? Surely you can only group notes with a three if there are three notes, and five where there are five :confused:

[BloodXero]

hum ... i dont know. why dont you make me an example so i can see what exactly you're talking about. and where did you see this. if it was from an internet tab site then that person screwed up, but if its from a recorded versions tab book then im stumped.

[BloodXero]

o i just realized, it depends on the length of the note. if you grouped a quarter note and eighth note you could put a 3 over it and have them both fit one beat.

[The Fury]

Thanks, but why a three though? If there are only 2 notes?

I'm taking these examples from some tab books I've got.

Sorry if I'm asking some odd/stupid questions, thanks agian.

[smfulla]

bloodxero has been right on the mark with these answers
the reason why 2 notes can be grouped as a triplet is what bloodxero said... the length of time that you'd hold them. Say a crotchet (quarter note) is grouped with a quaver (8th note) with a triplet sign over the top. It's exactly like having 3 quavers with a tie on the first 2. It's to do with the way you play themm, like how long you hold each note. You can have a triplet with a rest in there as well.

And the semiquaver (16th note), semiquaver, quaver group is often mistaken for a triplet. It's not, its just that whenever 3 notes are played fast, alot of people mistake them for triplets =]

[The Fury]

I think I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm only learning to understand some of the basics at the moment. Hopefully I'll get to grips with it, but for now it's all too much fo me :D

Anyway, thanks for all the help guys :)

[BloodXero]

one last answer, the two notes (8th and Quarter) are counted as 3 is because its an eighth note triplet. the quarter note counts as two eighth notes. there for there's 3.

[wise]

This is quite common in classical music for piano. When you see duplets and triplets, this boils down to the topic of Simple & Compound Meter. If you're in 'simple' meter, you might often see triplets throughout the music which basically allows the composer to sneak in more notes into the 'simple' time piece, simply notating it with a 3 to represent 1 beat or pulse. Same goes for the other direction, you might have a Compound meter piece and want to simply use fewer notes to represent a pulse in a particular measure, so you use a 2 under the grouping to show its a simple meter grouping.

'Chris

[The Fury]

I think I get it all now. It needed some time to sink in.

Cheers.