Introduction

Small Subdivisions

In this chapter, we return to the time signatures of Chapters 1 and 2, but we keep the small-value rhythmic patterning from Chapter 6. Since the main beats are now the quarter note and dotted-quarter note instead of the eighth note and dotted-eighth-note, these rhythmic patterns fall at an even smaller subdivision of the main beat. Thus, what might have been notated as in the top staff below (4/8) is instead notated with half as many measures in the bottom staff (4/4).

Introductory Exercise: Two Ways of Metrically Organizing the Same Passage, Marianna Martines, Keyboard Sonata in A Major, Movement 1

Another way to think of this topic is as a small-value equivalent of certain rhythmic patterns in large-value time signatures. Hence, the large-value equivalent of the bottom line above (4/4) is given below (4/2).

Introductory Exercise: Another Way of Notating the Same Passage

Small subdivisions are most often encountered in slow tempos, particularly interior movements of multi-movement classical works. There are two main challenges. The first is identical to that of small-value time signatures: one must keep track of an overabundance of beams and their relationships to different beat divisions. Second, most instances of small subdivisions require attending to an especially slow quarter-note or dotted-quarter-note beat. While it is often possible to feel a subdivision as the main beat (such as feeling the exercise above in 4/8 or instead of 4/4), there are often good phrase rhythmic reasons to attend to the larger notated beat as well.

This chapter is organized similarly to Chapters 1 and 2, starting with a section that features straightforward rhythmic patterns with thirty-second notes, followed by sections featuring more challenging rhythmic patterns involving ties, dots, triplets, and sixty-fourth notes.