# Music Notation and triplets



## mmm.guitar

Hi,

Wandering if anyone can help me understand triplets more.

With triplets do they always have to come in a group of 3, i.e. can you ever, or does it make sense to get a single tripleted note on its own? 

For example the rhythm in a 4/4 bar: 

crotchet, tripleted crotchet, crotchet, tripleted crotchet, tripleted crotchet. 

Where the tripleted crotchet is just a single crotchet from a triplet group and not a group of 3.

Has anyone seen anything like this in the music they have played?

I see music score software which enables you to do this but is it actually something used in music or more the programmer just doing something generic? 

It doesnt make much sense to me as it would seemingly knock everthing out of time.

Thanks for any help.


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## Rasa

It's very irregular, and at speed people will barely hear the intended rythm.

I haven't encountered it yet in any of the pre-modern era of music I played or listened to.


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## mmm.guitar

Awesome, yeah thinking a rhythm would not really come up, if so once in a blue moon in some random electronic music. Thanks for your help


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## GraemeG

There's plenty of music with only part of the triplet there; Bruckner might write a 'triplet' which actually consists of one rest and two notes. There are wonderfully complex rhythms in the first movement of the 6th symphony with these kinds of illustrations. But the triplets are all 'together' in one form or another.

I've never come across the kind of thing you give as an example. The general rule is that any bar can usually be broken down into smaller components, which consitute a beat in themselves, or a half bar. The sort of illustration you give may be very well for a computer to play, but it causes all kinds of trouble when you put it in front of live musicians. As you've written it, the four beats are of no use to anyone. Re-writing it as all-triplets with the correct ties would make it readable and still be rhythmically accurate.
cheers,
G


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