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little notes

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(@jimh2)
Estimable Member
Joined: 18 years ago
Posts: 80
Topic starter  

I'm not sure if I can describe this question appropriately and I don't have any mechanism for a picture so here goes: In looking at a sheet of music I see something that I don't understand. There are regular sized eighth notes and in some instances there are smaller sized eighth notes either before or following the regular sized ones. What does this mean?

Music is the universal language, love is the key.


   
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(@noteboat)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 21 years ago
Posts: 4921
 

It could be a couple of things...

Little notes are usually called 'grace' notes. These are decorations that sort of exist outside the time of the music (if you're in 4/4, you have four full beats plus any grace notes). So the grace notes either get played slightly before their position, or the note immediately after gets shortened.

Although usually written as eighth notes, grace notes can be shorter - sometimes much shorter.

Grace notes are usually 'crossed' with a diagonal line through the stem.

Other possibilities for little notes....

It could be the starting note for a slide, or more rarely, the ending note

It could be the starting note for a bend... some publishers will write this in parenthesis (but just to be confusing, some publishers put parenthesis around the pitch the note is bent to)

It could be a pitch for a syllable that's not sung in all the verses. For instance, if the song is in 2/4, and most of the time it's a single syllable half note, but on one verse there's a two-eighths/quarter note phrase, the eighths/quarter will be written smaller, but in the same measure.

It could be a counterpoint vocal. If you have two distinct vocal lines, the 'response' line is often written smaller.

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(@jimh2)
Estimable Member
Joined: 18 years ago
Posts: 80
Topic starter  

It could be a couple of things...

Little notes are usually called 'grace' notes. These are decorations that sort of exist outside the time of the music (if you're in 4/4, you have four full beats plus any grace notes). So the grace notes either get played slightly before their position, or the note immediately after gets shortened.

Although usually written as eighth notes, grace notes can be shorter - sometimes much shorter.

Grace notes are usually 'crossed' with a diagonal line through the stem.

Other possibilities for little notes....

It could be the starting note for a slide, or more rarely, the ending note

It could be the starting note for a bend... some publishers will write this in parenthesis (but just to be confusing, some publishers put parenthesis around the pitch the note is bent to)

It could be a pitch for a syllable that's not sung in all the verses. For instance, if the song is in 2/4, and most of the time it's a single syllable half note, but on one verse there's a two-eighths/quarter note phrase, the eighths/quarter will be written smaller, but in the same measure.

It could be a counterpoint vocal. If you have two distinct vocal lines, the 'response' line is often written smaller.
Well....that clears it up. :shock:

Music is the universal language, love is the key.


   
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(@slejhamer)
Famed Member
Joined: 19 years ago
Posts: 3221
 

jimh2, check out the top part of THIS GUITARNOISE LESSON. Doug Sparling explains a type of grace note used in Celtic music. Listen to the MP3s and follow along with the tab and notation. It should be similar enough to what you're seeing that you can figure it out.

Unless it's one of the other things that Noteboat mentions ... :lol:

"Everybody got to elevate from the norm."


   
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(@misanthrope)
Noble Member
Joined: 18 years ago
Posts: 2261
 

Could you scan the 'offending article' and post it? That might narrow the list down a little for this particluar example...

ChordsAndScales.co.uk - Guitar Chord/Scale Finder/Viewer


   
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(@jimh2)
Estimable Member
Joined: 18 years ago
Posts: 80
Topic starter  

jimh2, check out the top part of THIS GUITARNOISE LESSON. Doug Sparling explains a type of grace note used in Celtic music. Listen to the MP3s and follow along with the tab and notation. It should be similar enough to what you're seeing that you can figure it out.

Unless it's one of the other things that Noteboat mentions ... :lol:

Ahhhhh!! It appears they are called ornaments.

Music is the universal language, love is the key.


   
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(@noteboat)
Illustrious Member
Joined: 21 years ago
Posts: 4921
 

ok.... grace notes are one type of ornament (but there are lots of others). Ornaments are anything used to 'decorate' a main note - like grace notes, trills, turns, mordents.... :)

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