Measures slow down and speed up

See the comment I just posted, but I can actually give you a quick run down of the rules for rhythmic notation:

1. In any measure that contains only quarters and halves (crotchets and minims for the UK, I think), you can combine them any way you want. Same of course for a measure consisting of just a whole note.

2. In any measure that includes eighth notes (quavers) - and that includes use of dotted quarters (dotted crotchets) - you must mentally divide a 4/4 measure into two 2/4 measures. Any note that starts on one side of the measure and is held out into the second side must be split into two notes with a tie. But within each half of the measure, you can combine the eights & quarters any way you like. Another way of saying this is that you must expose beat 3 when eighths (quavers) are involved: there must be a physical note that begins on beat 3, even if it is actually the second half of a tie.

3. In any half measure that includes sixteenth notes (semiquavers) - and that includes dotted eighths (dotted quavers) - you must mentally divide that half measure into two 1/4 measures, and similarly break up notes that start in one portion of the measure but continue to the next. Another way of saying this is that you must expose the second beat of each half measure when sixteenths (semiquavers) are invovled.

4. Beams similarly must note straddle these divisions. So in any half measure that includes sixteenths (semiquavers), that means you only beam notes together is they occur within a single beat. No connecting notes that are part of beat one with notes that are part of beat two.

So in your example, you cannot have the second note as a dotted eighth - that would make it extend into beat two. You must write it as an eighth tied to a sixteenth, so we can see where beat two is. And then, you must break the beam there as well. Similarly, the next note starts within beat two but ends within beat three, so it must be broken up to expose beat 3.

There are certain exceptions - rhythms so common that we can waive these rules because we've all seen them thousands of times (like a measure consisting of 8 eighth notes all beamed together). But these rules aren't optional. You really *have* to be aware of these rules when notating rhythms, because all printed music is produced using these same rules, and the way a human being reads a rhythm is by recognizing its similarity to other rhythms he has played. There are only eight possible rhythms in the entire world (until you get into triplets, anyhow) in terms of how they are notated if you've broken ti down correctly. They correspond to the eight ways you can arrange quarter notes, halves, and whole notes to form a full measure. They are: W, H H, Q Q Q Q, H Q Q, Q Q H, Q H Q, DottedH Q, Q DottedH. Similarly, there are only eight ways of writing a half measure using eighths, quarters, and halves; and only eight ways of writing a single beat using sixteenths, eighths, and quarters.

We absolutely depend on this in reading rhythms. Music that breaks these rules won;t look familiar, and it is practically guaranteed most players will not be able to read it. I mean, sure, he can eventually stop and figure it out (and he'll probably then rewrite it correctly so he can get it right next time without having to remember how it worked out to be. But he shouldn't have to if the music is written correctly in the first place.

In your case, here is the correct version:

As you can see, each beat is clearly visible, and each is easily recognized as one of the eight possible rhythms. The first beat is eighth eighth, the next is sixteenth eighth sixteenth, the next is quarter, and the last is sixteenth dotted eighth.

Copy and paste does generally work, yes. But it can indeed produce some odd results when trying to copy rhythms from one part of a beat to another, especially when triplets are involved. Probably best to only copy whole measures or whole numbers of beats.