Accidentals, Key Signatures and More Rhythms

Do you remember what accidentals are? They are simply symbols that modify pitches. Any note can be raised or lowered a half step (one fret) by placing an accidental directly before it. Accidentals that raise a note one half step are called sharps. Those that lower a note one half step are called flats; and naturals cancel a previously used sharp or flat.

Accidentals apply only to the octave in which they are written and remain in effect only until the next measure (or bar line), although it is common to see courtesy accidentals as reminders that a previous accidental does not apply. If an accidental is tied across a bar line, it remains in effect only until the tied note has finished sounding. If a different accidental is used on the same pitch, the new accidental cancels the old one.

What about key signatures? Aren’t they the same as accidentals? No. If a key signature is placed at the beginning of a composition (between the treble clef and time signature), all octaves of the pitches throughout the song are affected by it. You’ve seen key signatures before. They look like a sharp or flat symbol (sometimes several) at the beginning of compositions. This affects what “key” or theme the song will take.

Triple Meters and More Syncopated Rhythms

We now know that common time is otherwise known as 4/4 and is the most popular time signature in contemporary music. John Philip Sousa regularly used this timing for his famous marches.

The next most common meter is based on dividing the pulse into groups of three beats. This is called triple meter. The 3/4 time signature is a good example of this timing. We actually could have 3/8 time too, or even 6/8 time has a triple feel, though not officially triple meter. To better grasp the feel of triple meter time, think of waltz tempos.

In previous lessons we reviewed the dotted half note in 3/4 time and the dotted quarter note (3 beats per bar if 4 is the bottom number of our time signature). Since the dotted quarter note is worth 1 1/2 beats this makes it a syncopated figure, placing emphasis on parts of the measure that are not normally accented. When counting and playing a dotted quarter rhythm, it is vital to feel and count the strong beats in the measure/bar.

Now, dotted eighth rhythms are usually combined with a sixteenth note and when playing a dotted eighth rhythm, all four sixteenth note attacks are counted. But there’s another syncopated figure that you’ll see from time to time. This is the sixteenth-eighth-sixteenth. This rhythm is the most difficult of the sixteenth-note rhythms to count and feel, but is a favorite of funk rhythm players and important for all guitarists to be able to count and feel. The counting and picking recommendations for playing this rhythm are essentially the same as the dotted rhythms but make sure you feel the strong beats while counting all sixteenth-note subdivisions.

Syncopated sixteenth-note rhythms have been with us for 100 years and were one of the defining elements of ragtime music, perfected by Scott Joplin who died in 1919. Though ragtime also died with him for the most part, the Dixieland sounds of New Orleans gave way, but ragtime influenced many composers of Dixieland and early swing music.

Thirty-Second Notes

And you thought sixteenth notes were the fastest guns in town? Sorry. To tell you the truth there are even nasty little sixty-fourth notes. Just as two sixteenth notes equal one eighth note, two thirty-second notes equal one sixteenth note.

Though our first instinct would be to play thirty-second notes very fast, most music that involves them is intended to be played at a slower tempo. So while you may feel the urge to blaze through them and that is sometimes necessary, make sure the feel of the song calls for that tempo.