Understanding theory
Change note lengths Learn how the duration of notes can be modified with dots and ties, and how they fit within multiple time signatures
T
o properly understand what notes that use dots and ties mean, you first need to brush up on signatures and note duration. The pace of a piece of music is governed by its time signature. You can see this symbol at the start of any stave, right next to the treble or bass clef. It is usually two numbers such as 4/4 placed on top of one another, but it can differ. The stave is divided up into bars, and so the time signature defines the type and amount of notes (so how many beats) that each bar contains. Different notes have different durations. A 4/4 time signature means that a bar needs to contain
note values in each bar that combine to equal 4 beats, for example four crotchets/quarter notes. This is where dots and ties come in. Both work to alter the length of a specific type of note. An ‘augmentation dot’ is, rather neatly, a small dot that appears next to a note and instructs you to increase that note’s duration by half. For example, if you saw a dotted crotchet/quarter note, you would need to
play the length of the crotchet/quarter note plus half of that duration again (so a half of a crotchet/ quarter note would be an eighth of a semibreve/ whole note). Ties, on the other hand, work to merge notes of the same pitch. They appear as curved lines which link notes together and can let the duration of notes travel across barriers, such as bars.
“Dots and ties work to alter the length of a specific type of note”
Dots and ties examples A more in-depth look at duration, dots and ties
01 Remember note duration
02 Dotted notes
First is a semibreve/whole note. Two minims/half notes make a semibreve/ whole note, so two crotchets/quarter notes make a minim/half note. Notes smaller than crotchets/quarter notes have flags, and each flag halves the value.
Here is a dotted minim/half note, which lasts three beats, as the dot extends a minim’s value by half. Another crotchet/quarter note is added in to complete the bar’s four beats for the 4/4 time signature.
03 Tied notes
04 Different time signatures
You can see how the tie joins the two notes over a bar. You play tied notes as one long note instead of separately. This example features two crotchets/quarter notes tied together – this enables notes to carry on across bars.
This example shows dots and ties in 4/4 and 6/8 time signatures. Notice how the dots and ties extend a note’s length and then the note durations add up in the bars according to the specific signature.
44 Piano for Beginners
