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I'm trying to to practice my 2/4 time signature. Am I just making a stupid mistake with the attached image? They are 1/16th notes? so shouldn't there only be 8 of them to make up two beats and not 12? I am pretty out of practice, so am sure it is just me!

guidot
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Mathlearner
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1 Answers1

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Each of the four groups of 3 sixteenth notes has a "3" under them. This indicates that each group of 3 notes is a "triplet" and so is played in the same time as 2 such notes. That makes the arithmetic add up.

Brian Towers
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  • @Mathlearner traditionally, the three notes to which the 3 applies would be under a curved line. More recently, the triplet-grouping-line might be a square bracket so as to avoid the confusion with a slur or other articulation mark. Here, the engraver relies on the beaming for this purpose, which makes the 3 harder to notice (and, in some contexts, could create ambiguity with fingering marks). In some older scores, the 3 might be absent entirely, the performer being left to infer the triplet from the fact that there are 50% more of them than there normally ought to be. – phoog Aug 17 '20 at 15:40