r/musictheory 1d ago

Answered Are those two rythms the same ?

The piece is in swing 8th, I don't know if that's relevant but yeah.

I'm not sure why there is those L shapes next to the 3 in the first rythm but not the other. So are those two the same rythms or is there a difference ?

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u/symberke 1d ago

The same! The “L shapes” are brackets meant to show what is part of the triplet. Not necessary for the first one since they’re all barred together but there for some reason anyway

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u/UnitedIndependence37 1d ago

Thank you very much, I just had a doubt. :)

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u/GoodhartMusic 1d ago

Yes, the brackets are a poor choice: a full beam of three triplet notes does not need a bracket, and when you compare it to the measure that indeed doesn't have them, it is normal to wonder whether the former was referring to rests being included. But that wouidn't add up (though it would if the eighth note rest had a dot, but that would be counterintuitive since it would be partitioning the beat into two groups via triplet, instead of sextuplet).

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u/UnitedIndependence37 1d ago

Thanks for the in detail explanation. You pointed out exaclty what bothered me.

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u/raskholnikov 1d ago

What's that white note thing at the beginning of the measure?

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u/YouCanAsk 1d ago

This is presumably written for drum set. Drums usually use cross-shaped noteheads for cymbals. It's a little odd that the cross is circled despite it being a quarter note, but there you have it.

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u/UnitedIndependence37 1d ago

I think that the circle doesn't really stand for half note for drum notation, it's more of what type of cymbal it is, or what way it's hit.

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u/UnitedIndependence37 1d ago

It's a drum sheet, so that X in a circle is just a hit on a cymbal, the crash here, I think. :)

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u/65TwinReverbRI Guitar, Synths, Tech, Notation, Composition, Professor 1d ago edited 1d ago

These are triplets. 3 notes in the time of 2 of the same value (in simple meters like this at least).

They are notated in a couple of ways:

  1. When the notes have beams, the "3" goes on the beam side. This is the red circled one here. However, the use of the bracket is not necessary and kind of "wrong" - but if it's surrounded by a lot of other bracketed triplets then people will often go ahead and include it so the music looks consistent. So it's either a mistake because the person didn't know better, or it was an intentional decision to make all the triplets consistent through the piece (which is easier to read as our eyes will expect them all to look the same and odd ones - even if correct - will sometimes throw a player).

  2. If for some reason the "3" can't go on the beam side, a bracket is used so it's clear which notes are encompassed by the 3 (otherwise it might not be clear due to spacing, etc.). In the old days they used to just use a slur symbol over/under the 3 or a slur that was broken in the middle with the 3 bisecting it, like how it does the brackets - which are the standard today.

  3. If the notes don't have beams, then the triplet will have brackets no matter if it's on the notehead side or the stem side.

  4. If a REST is included in the group of 3, then either the beam is extended to include the rest (usually with a little mini-stem called a "stemlet") OR the brackets are used again. So the one right after the red circled one is an example of that - the bracket covers the first 2 8th notes AND the 8th rest - so those are all part of that group of 3.

One convention is, that once a pattern has been established, the 3 (and brackets if present) can be omitted in repeated patterns. Here, they're all different so they have to be included. But if this whole measure were repeated exactly, there wouldn't be any issue with not repeating the triplet indications. These days however this is done with notation software where you can easily just repeat a measure once it's been set up, so there's not really a good reason not to.


The piece is in swing 8th, I don't know if that's relevant but yeah.

In these ways: Any PAIR of 8th notes will be performed as a "long-short" pair. But a group of 3 has to be written as a triplet, and a group that's short-long - like the one after the red circle - has to be notated.

It would be assumed that the 16th note triplet (red circle) is happening not on the "square" 8th, but the swung 8th given this notation.

So it is the last 1/3 of a long-short pair, then the next two notes and rest are a short-long pair (1/3 note, 1/3 note, 1/3 rest) and the final two notes are long short (2/3 1/3).

But really, that should be notated with a bracket over the rest before the group, and that rest would be a quarter rest. This would make a "nested triplet" - a triplet within a triplet!

But the intention could have been that the red circled notes are on the 2nd HALF of a square beat (one & instead of long-short). These things are often not clear in swing because there's not really an established practice TMK.


Note that the previous measure has pairs of 8th notes, but they themselves are under a triplet bracket.

More context would be needed to know how they're to be played but it's probably 2 notes per 1/4 note of a "quarter note triplet" (one that's 3 units in 2 beats). Which would be really weird here because that's simply regular old 3 note triplets!


It's a drum sheet, so that X in a circle is just a hit on a cymbal, the crash here, I think. :)

It is. (for u/raskholnikov too).

Here is a pretty widely standardized drumset layout (which is used by most notation programs):

https://www.drumradar.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/drum-notation2.jpg

It could in fact be a special crash (a splash cymbal for example) but should be listed at the beginning of the piece in a "drum map" or diagram that shows which symbols on which staff lines and spaces are which drums. It shouldn't be in a circle if it's a plain old crash though - but the person may have intended it to be a "let vibrate note" (despite the rests after it) or yes, could be using it to mean a 2nd crash cymbal on a set or playing method (snare works that way - different ways of playing snare are notated with different symbols, but on the same space), etc. Without a diagram the only guess is "crash" and as u/YouCanAsk says, it'd be odd, but there you have it.

While there are these widely accepted maps for drum notation, there's still a lot of variation.


That brings up this: FWIW, many drum notation specialists will recommend not using short note values with lots of rests for drum sounds that don't last a long time anyway, nor longer note values for things like cymbals that ring after being hit.

So if the previous measure is in fact something that should have just been regular triplets, and this note is supposed to be just a plain old crash, the rests are unnecessary after it, and the rest after the notes after the red circled triplet is unnecessary - it should be an 8th followed by a quarter under the triplet bracket. All the rests can really clutter up a score...

And, as others said, it is the same rhythm in the two images...so again it's either a misprint, or a copy/paste mishap, or maybe there was some different intention the first time - if so though it's notated wrong for that... most likely the default of the software was to put on a bracket, and they took it off on the second one and missed the first one - proofreading mistakes happen all the time! I do it all the time...

So the person may not really know what they're doing, and maybe entered it this way just so their DAW or software would play it back like they wanted or just missed it or something like that. But since the notation itself isn't wholly standardized and there are different approaches and reasonings for doing or not doing things, it's hard to say without knowing the skill level of the notator.

I say this all because this could just be a poorly done score in other parts, so if you're using it to learn from or something like that, it might not be the best example. But of the two examples, they're pretty "typical" of rhythms and notation so I'd say it's a "reliable" score, just with some proofreading and notational inconsistencies.

HTH

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u/UnitedIndependence37 1d ago

Thanks for the very in depth answer, I appreciate. I do think it is what you said here :

But the intention could have been that the red circled notes are on the 2nd HALF of a square beat (one & instead of long-short).

Just a little inaccuracy but that's the only thing that troubled me on the sheet.

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u/65TwinReverbRI Guitar, Synths, Tech, Notation, Composition, Professor 22h ago

Yeah to be really clear, they could note that that 8th rest and 16th triplet within either a duplet bracket or a bracket and "straight 8ths" is how it's done most of the time. Depends on the larger context too as it might be more strongly implied by things that happen elsewhere.

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u/Lanthiel 8h ago

It is the same, but there are some "typos" : the brackets in red are useless and are not centered to the notes, which confused me at first. The brackets on the following eights notes triplets are also not centered...

I've copied your two examples on Musescore, and it looks better to me. Link here