Piano World Home Page Forums Our Most Popular Forums Adult Beginners Forum Note with multiple beams in sheet music

See this image: http://imgur.com/DzlA4CS

Why do the dotted eight notes in the treble have two beams? I'm pretty sure they are still eight notes (or else the measure doesn't add up since the time signature of the whole piece is 6/8), so why is there an extra beam?

Is there some special significance? Why not just skip that beam and have the other (double-beam) up at top instead?

That is because those notes serve two roles, as part of the accompaniment figure in 12, and part of the melody in 4. The upward beams indicate the melody, while the downward beams indicate the accompaniment figure.

I think that it is to show you to hold the A, B, C and D for 1 and 1/2 beats while you play the other 2 notes in your RH.

Wow, so this piece had me quite confused for a while, but with your help I think I understand how to read it.

What had me confused is that the math doesn't add up if you count the melody notes (the dotted A B C D) as dotted 8th notes, since that exceeds the 6/8 note budget for the measure.

If I understand the notation correctly there are actually two voices in the treble, one with 12 eights and one with 4 dotted quarters. Is it common to 'superimpose' voices in sheet music like this, and does it have some kind of name?

Also, how do I play it? Simply hit the treble/bass notes at the same time but hold the dotted notes for an extra half beat? The reason I'm unsure is because later parts of the same piece follows a 3:2 polyrhythm, but as far as I understand the part in the image is a simple 1:1 rhythm?

I think you want to voice the top notes, that is the dotted 8ths A,B,C,D and bring those out as the melody. You may not be able to hold the D the full 1.5 beats because you will be reaching more than a octave with your thumb to hit middle C - depends on your reach. Not sure why this was written in 6/8 time. Think it would have made more sense to write it in 3/4 time.

If you're holding the pedal down, just be sure you're hitting the top beam notes stronger than the bottom beams. If you aren't holding the pedal, it could be a little trickier. You'll need to hold the top notes while you play the bottom 2 after them. Overall, the RH notes should have a feel of DA da da DA da da DA da da, etc.

It's 6/8 because of the division of the notes. In 6/8 time, the eighth notes are grouped in threes, so you have 2 groups of 3 notes. It also can be evenly divided down the measure, giving it a sort of 2 beat feel. In 3/4, the notes are grouped in twos, so 3 groups of 2, and the measure is now cut in 3 instead of 2. So although mathematically they are the same, the difference is how it feels and where the secondary beat pulses are.

6/8: ONE two three FOUR five six - 2 main pulses

3/4: ONE and TWO and THREE and - 3 main pulses

No, it comes out just right. A dotted 8th note take 1.5 times the time of a regular eighth note. Add up the time for the four dotted eighth notes and you get the time for 4 * 1.5 = 6 regular eighth notes.


You're right that there are two voices in the treble. Your note names are off. One voice has 12 sixteenth notes and the other voice has 4 dotted eighth notes.


It's common to have multiple voices in music. Whenever two voices overlap on a pitch, you need a solution. One solution is using one notehead with two stems. Another solution is writing two noteheads on the same pitch, side-by-side. I don't know the name for it, although I imagine that at least for music engravers it has a name.

The arithmetic is fine, though it looks a little confusing. The dots apply to the quavers (eighth-notes) with the upward stems, and a dotted eighth-note is three sixteenths, giving six sixteenths across the beam, same as for the lower double beam. There's an old maxim in mathematics, 'let the notation do the work', but sometimes music notation creates a little more work for comprehension!