How to notate uneven lenght in music?

[Harry_HH]

I believe I know the music theory, even better than just the basic level.
But yesterday I faced a very fundamental issue, which made me wonder, if I have some kind of black out there, or is it a real issue.

This is, to put it simply, how to notate music, where even number is devided by an uneven number.

E. g. in time signature 4/4, if you play, inside one bar, without rests, 3 evenly long notes, which common lenght is exactly one bar, how do you score that?

[Aloysius]

Three beats in one bar. 3/4

[Gamma-UT]

You can also use ties across beat divisions or notate as a big-ass triplet. But time signature is generally the best first port of call unless you're dealing with a polyrhythm situation, which is largely why funk looks like a spider freakout in notation.

[Harry_HH]

The starting point is 4/4, which I tried to underline.
This leads the even/uneven dilemma.
I. e. no time signature change, in this case (a quarter note is not the same 4/4 devided by three).

The "big-ass triplet", as Gamma-UT put it, may be the best solution.

This kind of challenges are more common in the age of DAWs and piano rollbars, where you play MIDI notes, which are sometimes difficult to notate -
e. g. because of its sometimes hard to put bar lines to the correct places afterwards.
If you have (I dont at the moment) notation option in your DAW (e. g. Logic or Cubase), the live playing (recording) is often not that accurate, which leads to the missinterpretations my the notation engine - and quite a mess in your notation picture.

[mystran]

The starting point is 4/4, which I tried to underline.
This leads the even/uneven dilemma.
I. e. no time signature change, in this case (a quarter note is not the same 4/4 devided by three).

If the length of a quarter note should stay the same, one would usually use a time-signature change (and yeah, there's stuff that does that almost every bar). If the length of the 3-beat bar should be the same as the length of the regular 4/4 bar, then it's a triplet.

In classical music, you can fairly regularly see triplets that are further divided to a rhythm with shorter notes and if I'm not mistaken it's most commonly notated in sheet music simply with three quarters (or other base units) worth of whatever notes you happen to have, with a horizontal bracketing titled "3" over the whole thing (although the bracketing is also often omitted and the 3 placed directly over the grouping bar if there is one when the notes are 8ths or shorter). I suspect convincing the average DAW to understand such things might turn out to be problematic though, but as far as placing bars goes... if you record with a tick then I don't see how that would cause any problems.

As far as I can see, it only really gets a bit confusing if you need to try to form triplets that cover multiple bars. At that point your best bet might be to just change the time-signature (and then tempo to compensate to keep the actual timing the same) such that you can notate the same thing with shorter nominal note lengths.

edit: oh, obviously to cover a 4/4 bar you need a triplet of half-notes, but .. like .. yeah

[Harry_HH]

=
t r. i. p. l. e. t

[jancivil]

E. g. in time signature 4/4, if you play, inside one bar, without rests, 3 evenly long notes, which common lenght is exactly one bar, how do you score that?

"The "big-ass triplet", as Gamma-UT put it, may be the best solution." Triplet half notes is what it specifically is. It is THE answer.

The Black Page bar 15, for an instance.

bar 15 BP.jpeg

Here's another problem, 4 in the time of 5 beats of 4/4, which could be expressed with the marking 4:5 and a bracket as above, but this crossing the bar is maybe not perfectly clear; so you can figure it by subdivision. 5 quarters is 20 16ths; divided by 4 it's 5 sixteenths:

bars 20-23 BP.jpeg

Bars 21 & 22 and the first half of 23. IE., he does it twice, 8:10 actually.

Cubase's notation is a mess if you're not limiting yourself to establishing it in notation first unless you're a machine, as you noticed. I have never asked Logic to transcribe anything, but for various reasons I would prefer to notate in Logic. If you're doing *anything* but two and three {edit: I mean subdivisions of 2 or 3} and asking Cubase to transcribe that you're shit out of luck, though. The way I approach this problem, because I don't love quantized rhythm, is to do the thing and then determine where barlines are in what I did via the warp time function. But you can determine very complex things by the quantize in Key Editor. I know you said you ain't got it but for further understanding and for the larger room:

quantize Panel.png

The grid is established as 8th note triplet, with a pentuplet ('5-let'). So the Key Editor grid visual with that selected from the menu is 15 per quarter note. Now you can determine 5 in in the time of 4 (15 ÷ 3) or a triplet half note (15 ÷ 5) and do triplets within that quarter note 5-let or 5-lets within the triplet half. If you need to double up, do it in the Panel, 16th Triplet 5-let. And you may establish the grid as dotted and do those divisions.

Cubase will not nest tuplets in Score Editor but there are ways.

[Harry_HH]

Thank you for the thorough answers.
The Kvr, once again, showed its power.

[mystran]

The Black Page bar 15, for an instance.

bar 15 BP.jpeg

This seems like an obvious candidate for a prima vista exercise from hell.

[jancivil]

It's at a pretty slow tempo too, so triplet half note is a small challenge before you even get into what's inside.

To even get that, maybe we should start with triplet quarters and tie two of them together, at least new to it.
A fast tempo, no such issue.

[jancivil]

You can also use ties across beat divisions or notate as a big-ass triplet. But time signature is generally the best first port of call unless you're dealing with a polyrhythm situation, which is largely why funk looks like a spider freakout in notation.

3 in the time of 4/4 is a triplet half note. If the idea is 4/4 (reason #1 I used Black Page for examples) that's that.
Time signature is not the first call per se.
If the idea of the time is 4, 4 quarter notes, 3 is by definition a cross-rhythm.

If we determine the three aspect is the primary time (pulse), then the 4 has to be considered against that. We can do compound time, 6/4 let's say, 4 is notated @ dotted quarter values. If we however are doing eg., 5 in the time of 4 the avoidance of this complication produces other problems. Problems of clarity. 4 in the time of 5 is dealt with there in bars 21-23 in a perfectly clear way. This is possible because the range of beats it occurs during is divisible by 4 and by 5 so the subdivision @ 16ths fits.
When this is not the case, we have to simply consider 4 in the time of 5 or the other way round for what it is; 5 in itself is not a product of 2. 3 isn't, etc.

So back to clarity: sure, we could realize that 3 x 2 = 6, or 3 x 4 = 12 and do compound time to fit it as though it's less complicated than a triplet (and, per the OP, kid ourselves for the moment that 4 isn't the actual pulse). We could realize that 5 x 4 = 20 and establish a bar of 20/4 or use the strategy of ties as I showed. But if the passage is not a product of 5 and of 4 in length, this is not useable. Once someone here in this forum, decided that doing 3 in the time of and also 5 in the time of <2> meant 30. But then if '2' is basic, expressing 2 is quite over-complicated.

Et cetera.

[Harry_HH]

I had to check the definition for the cross-rhythm.

Very much polyrhythm-concectrated, i.e. out of my main scope here, but most inreresting article in the wiki.
And that (polyrhythm) what it is, after all:

"In music, a cross-beat or cross-rhythm is a specific form of polyrhythm. The term cross rhythm was introduced in 1934 by the musicologist Arthur Morris Jones . It refers to when the rhythmic conflict found in polyrhythms is the basis of an entire musical piece."

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cross-beat

[jancivil]

Polyrhythm is more general. All cross-rhythm comes under polyrhythm but the latter doesn't need to be the former.

I don't agree that "the basis of an entire musical piece" is necessary in order to call something 'cross-rhythm'.
3 is not a product of 2 therefore 3 against two crosses it. In the topic title you wrote 'uneven'. It crosses two (or 4), rather than agree with it before it's resolved.

For instance triplets has been common for a long, long time so one supposes it's not considered exotic enough to create a special name for it. But it's not different in quality than 5 in the time of a duple basis; both ≠ product of 2. In itself, they cross 2.
It's not a strong definition afaic.