how to write 1/3 of a 1/4 note??
Sorry if this if off topic... I'm no music genius, not even close, but
I am transcribing a guitar tune in 3/4 time and I need a measure that starts with 1/4 note, then each of next two 1/4's needs to be a mini arpeggio, sort of da-da-da.
Can this be done? How? I know I can play it.
Dick Penny
Comments
You appear to be asking how to write triplets (feel free to correct me if that's wrong). To write a triplet in MuseScore, select the base duration (in this case, a quarter note), then type CTL+3. The program will generate three eighth-note rests under a bracket with a 3 in it, like this:
Overwrite the rests with the notes you want, and you're done.
In reply to You appear to be asking how by Recorder485
No. I need a triplet to fit into a 1/4 note duration. Your suggestion creates 3 x 1/8 duration which is not 2/8.
I think I need to change time signature for one measure only from 3/4 to ????
Help appreciated.
Dick Penny
In reply to No. I need a triplet to fit by dpenny
That IS a triplet which fits into a quarter-note duration. This notation tells the performer to play three triplet eighth notes over the duration of two standard eighth notes (the equivalent of one quarter note).
When you write triplets--that is, three notes to fit into the time of two--you use the next shorter division of the base duration. So if you want a triplet to fill the duration of a quarter, you use eighths. If you want the triplet to fill the duration of an eighth, you use sixteenths. And so on. It is the little '3' above the group of notes--with or without a bracket or 'slur'--which tells the musician what's going on.
In reply to No. I need a triplet to fit by dpenny
Yes, what you are describing is a triplet 9three notes in the space of one beat) and the above is exactly how it is notated. It looks like three eighths, but the "3" above it means they should be compressed into a single beat, and that is exactly how MuseScore treats it.
If it helps, see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triplet for more on triplets.
What I would suggest is that you count it out to yourself very slowly. Is that really three equally-spaced notes? Or is it, say, an eighth and two sixteenths?
Is it, perhaps, a glissando? (Maybe, two of them?) Quarter-note, gliss, gliss?
When I am trying to figure out the timing of “the notes that are in my head,” I clap my hands and say very slowly, “one and-da two and-da three and-a” while trying to slow-down my mental perception of what I am thinking about. Or, with an instrument, play it slower and slower while trying to capture the timing of it.
I usually find that what I first thought was an n-tuplet, in fact is not, because a tuplet’s notes are by definition equally spaced, whereas in my mind’s ear there is usually some kind of syncopation going on.