Eclipsehornplayer

Guys and Gals,

I have no formal music education past High School and have come across a notation that I don't understand. Can anyone help me?

Here's the exact scenario:

It's a march in Cut time
The measure is a 1st space half note (F) with a diagonal line across the stem from top right to bottom left and 4 dots under this note. To fill out the measure you have a 1/4 note (F) and then a 1/4 rest.

What do I do with this???

Anyone?

Tootsall

Play the first note as if it were written as 4 X 1/8 notes staccato. Play it twice as fast because you are in Cut time.

Dat dat dat dat - dah - rest

the first two "dat" occur on the downbeat, the second two on the "off", the Dah forms the second beat and the rest the second "off".

The diagonal slash is a writing convention and is simply a symbol used to make writing the music out easier: it represents (in your case), four of eighth notes as indicated by the 4 dots (ie, divide a half note by 4). You may also see 3 dots or any other number.

Tootsall

Double Post

Liad Bar-EL

Tootsall,

Would you repeat that one more time just to make sure that I have it?

Thanks,

Liad Bar-EL

Dale Proctor

Hey, you're a HACK like me!

Anyway, Tootsall is right. The note symbol used (in this case a half note) indicated how many beats the figure occupies. The amount of slashes indicates the value of the notes in the figure. One slash = 1/8 notes, two slashes = 1/16 notes, etc. The dots are just a reinforcement of how many notes are in the figure.

Eclipsehornplayer

Thanks very much Ed and Dale!

I had suspected that; but had no reference material to back it up.

TM to the rescue... How I've really enjoyed this site!