Musical terminology -- how does it help you?

**MLafer** · Joined: 26 Mar 2006 Posts: 464 Location: Canton, MI

Lately I've been seeing a lot of posts where someone says something like "this section is all eighth notes" or "it's sixteenth note triplets", something like that. Apparently this is a revelation to some people and helps them (people who play an instrument, I guess). To me it is mostly gibberish. I feel like if I understood it it could help me, though, so somebody want to explain? I don't want an essay on musical notation, just basically

a) how to determine if a section is eighth notes, sixteenth etc.
b) What to do with this information. How do you conform your strumming/fretting technique once you learn that a note is of a certain length.
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**thekovinc** · Joined: 05 May 2006 Posts: 905 Location: Minneapolis, MN

**Hellion42** · Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 11:18 pm Post subject:

Also, just as an addendum, a lot of times around here people will refer to any grouping of three notes as a "triplet" even when it's not truly a triplet. Eg. in CFH, just after the BYGGBYGG part that everyone hates, it goes into descending groups of 3: BYRYRGOBYBYRYRG. While they're groups of three in a scale sense, they're really just straight 16th notes:

||BYRY|RGOB|YBYR|YRG.||

I hope I didn't just confuse things more, but I felt that needed to be addressed.

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**Azuarc** · Joined: 18 Jul 2006 Posts: 1389 Location: Philadelphia

People do misuse the term triplets sometimes. Even sections where the notes are clumped in 3s with a gap are sometimes called trips.

For an added measure, when people "count" music, they usually say 1-2-3-4 for the beats, 1-and-2-and-3-and-4-and to include the midpoints. (Beginning of Take Me Out other than the first 3 notes.) And when you split up the space between those eighth notes, you get sixteenths, which are 1 ee and ah 2 ee and ah...sometimes just 1e+a2e+a for short.

If you are trained to count this way, finding out that a given section is simply sixteenth notes means you can subdivide the beat in your head and play along appropriately. Subdividing is the key for many musicians for keeping a steady beat, and it helps make sure you get the rhythmic passages right as well. Unfortunately, the experience I have with the matter is from 9 years playing in my school band, and it wasn't until about 9th or 10th grade that I really learned that stuff.

**COBW3BB** · Posted: Sun Aug 27, 2006 4:22 am Post subject:

This is very very useful, I think a compiled version of everyone who posted in this and gave helpful information should be made and stickied.
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**DemonHybrid** · Joined: 19 Aug 2006 Posts: 2871 Location: Matamoras, PA

Basically...to learn 16ths...tap your foot to a slow beat. Not too slow, but a steady one.

Keep your foot tapping, then pretend your strumming (or actually take your controller) and strum 4 times between the two steady taps of your foot. Keep them the same distance apart. It's called 16ths, because like someone in this thread said...there are 4 beats in a measure, and one of those beats is a "Quarter", or 4th, so you're "splitting" the notes up...cut 1-1-1-1 in half, then you get 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1, or 8ths. It's the same thing with music, so think something like a pizza pie being sliced into equal slices or something of that nature. That's pretty much all you need to know.

To apply this...use the "tap your foot" method with the white lines on the Fretboard coming at you, that keeps the beat...it's how I FC'd Heart Full of Black's really fast section, they're all fast 16ths and if you keep time, you can FC it pretty easily.

**Shadow** · Joined: 22 Jul 2006 Posts: 329

Just to answer the OP's question, the terminology helps me... Not.

Why? 'Cause I'm not a musician. I know what the terms mean, but that sure as Hell doesn't mean I can apply my knowledge in practice. ._.

**dspoonrt** · Joined: 20 Feb 2006 Posts: 2449 Location: Columbus, OH