Skip to main content ↑ ↓
Topic: 5,6,7 or 8 beats in a quarter duration (Read 3636 times) previous topic - next topic

5,6,7 or 8 beats in a quarter duration

how do you write 5,6,7 or 8 beats in a quarter duration? the program only allows my to write triplets.

Re: 5,6,7 or 8 beats in a quarter duration

Reply #2 –
For 6:  Two sixteenth note triplets.  For 8:  32nd notes.  5 and 7 are not possible, as the above poster said.

Re: 5,6,7 or 8 beats in a quarter duration

Reply #3 –
I think I agree with the use of two sets of triplets for the sextuplet, if you want 6 notes in the time of 4.  But then you could just write 6 eighth notes and tripletize the entire group.  Either way, you want or need to change the number that appears over the grouping.

However, a sextuplet sometimes means six notes played in the time of 5 or 7 http://www.music.vt.edu/musicdictionary/texts/Sextuplet.html.  This makes for a programming challenge.  With a triplet the m:n ratio is known (3:2).  With other n-tuplets, you would need to be able to set the value for both m and n after highlighting the notes you want to affect by the time alteration.

If you're only writing for one instrument, you can fake the n-tuplet playback by inserting a tempo change before and after the n-tuplet notes, but with more than one staff, it may not be so easy, since you would have to make provision in the other staffs for the different tempo.