16: Seeing Dots
You Are Not Seeing Things
Those dots you see behind some notes are supposed to be there. A dot
just to the right of a note makes the note longer. How much longer? Well
it depends on what note the dot follows. Let me explain.
A dot adds half the amount of the note it follows. Another, perhaps
simpler, way of saying it, is that a dotted note is 1.5 times the length of
the same kind of note without a dot.
Sounds weird doesn’t it? An example might throw more light on this
peculiar practice. Let’s use a whole note as our first example.The Dotted Whole Note
A whole note ( ), as you know, gets 4 beats. Half of that is two, for a
total of six.
Or, 4 x 1 1/2 = 6; or 4 + 2 = 6
A dotted whole note ( ) has six beats.
But wait a minute, you might be saying, there are only 4 beats in a
measure. Well, for 4/4 time, you’re right. But with dotted whole notes we
need a new meter, 6/4 time. Remember the top number tells us there are
six beats per measure; the bottom number tells us that the quarter note
gets one beat. Here are a couple measures of 6/4 time:Example 16.1 Three measures of dotted whole notes.