Par t 2:Rhythms
Taking Two Notes—and Tying Them Together
Another way to make a note longer is to tie it to another note. A tie is a little
rounded connector placed between two notes; it essentially tells you to add the
second note to the first note.64
A tie makes one note out of two.When you see two or more notes tied together, you play them as if they’re a
single note; for example, two quarter notes tied together equal one half note.
What do you do if the tied notes are on different pitches? Well, this may look
like a tie, but it isn’t really a tie—it’s a slur. A slur is a way of indicating that two
(or more) notes are to be played in a smoothly connected fashion, rather than as
distinctly separate notes.Another way to think
about a dotted note
is that it has a dura-
tion equal to three of
the next-smaller note value.
For example, a dotted half
note equals 3 quarter notes,
a dotted quarter note equals
3 eighth notes, and a dot-
ted eighth note equals 3 six-
teenth notes.TipThis isn’t really a tie; it’s a slur.Taking the Beat and Dividing by Three
There’s another little oddity in rhythmic notation—and this one is very impor-
tant. Everything we’ve done up to now has divided notes and beats by two.
What happens, then, if you divide by something other than two?
The most common division other than two is dividing by three; this is called a
triplet.When you see the number three over a group of three notes (or three
rests—or any combination of three equal notes and rests), you know that those
three notes have to fit into a space that would normally hold just two notes.The three notes of a triplet fit in the space of two regular notes.Triplets have more of a rolling feel than straight notes and are counted as “trip-
ah-let.” You can have triplets of any note value, although quarter-note triplets
(where three of them are spaced over two beats), eighth-note triplets (three on
a single quarter-note beat), and sixteenth-note triplets (three in the space of a
single eighth note) are the most common.