Expert: Donald - 4/17/2008

Question
Hi, I have a question. I have a measure of music that goes like this: quarter note, quarter note, sixteenth note and dotted eighth note, and another quarter note. I was wondering when does the sixteenth note come in? Does it come in on the up-beat of 2 or the down-beat of 3? By the way, the sixteenth note and dotted eighth note is tied. Thank you!

Answer
Hi Michelle,

Thanks so much for your question! Sometimes rhythms can look more complicated than they actually are. The rhythm that you cited has two quarter notes on beats 1 & 2, and a quarter note on beat 4. Thus three beats of the measure (assuming that we are in 4/4 time) are simple to dissect. Beat three has a sixteenth note tied to a dotted eighth note. Since a dotted eighth note has three sixteenth notes contained within it, and it is tied to another sixteenth note, then this equals four sixteenth notes all tied together; or a quarter note! So the more difficult rhythm is exactly the same as the other beats: it is a quarter note (sixteenth note + dotted eighth note=1 quarter note) that falls on beat three. I hope that this helps!

Best regards,

Donald