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THE SINGERS TOOLKIT
An Incomplete Guide for Baffled Choral Singers

|Time Values| |Triplets & Duplets| |Ties| |Dots| |Staccato & Pauses| |Rests|

Time Values

The appearance of a notes tells HOW LONG IT LASTS compared to other notes (Its TIME VALUE).

A SEMIBREVE (UK)
WHOLE NOTE (US)
lasts as long as two

MINIMS (UK)
HALF NOTES (US)
Here is a clip which starts with semibreves and then moves into minims.
Play
Pause
A MINIM lasts as long as two

CROTCHETS (UK)
QUARTER NOTES (US)

Here is a clip which begins with minims, moves into crotchets, and then ends with a minim.
Play
Pause
A CROTCHET lasts as long as two

QUAVERS (UK)
EIGHTH NOTES (US)

or or or Here is a clip which begins with crotchets, moves into quavers, then ends with a minim.
Play
Pause
A QUAVER lasts as long as two

SEMIQUAVERS (UK)
SIXTEENTH NOTES (US)
or or or This clip starts in quavers, moves into semiquavers, then ends with a crotchet.
Play
Pause
Here is a clip which begins in semibreves, moves into minims, crotchets, quavers, semiquavers, and then ends with a crotchet.
Play
Pause

It make no difference to the time value whether the tails point up or down,or whether they are joined or not. The decision to place a tail up/down is done purely for the appearance, or to distinguish between different parts (soprano or alto, tenor or bass) sharing the same stave.

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Triplets & Duplets

Occasionally, beats are not divided into 2 or 4 but into 3. These are then called TRIPLETS and indicated thus: The triplet quavers last as long as two normal quavers, and the triplet crotchets last as long as two normal crotchets

Here is a clip which begins in normal quavers, and then moves into triplets, ending with a crotchet.

Play
Pause

If the basic beat is already divided into 3 (we'll come to this later), it's possible to have a DUPLET, which is two equal notes in the time of three.

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Ties

Notes can be TIED together to make a longer note IF THEY ARE AT THE SAME PITCH (on the same line or space). You add together the value of each note to get the value of the single tied note.

If they are NOT AT THE SAME PITCH, they are SLURS (which mean: sing smoothly.)

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Dots

A DOT after a note makes it 50% LONGER. A DOUBLE DOT makes it 75% LONGER.

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Staccato and Pauses

The sound of a note may be clipped by a STACCATO DOT (a bit clipped) or WEDGE (very clipped - staccatissimo). This creates little silences between the notes so that the notes still fall on the beat.

Here is a clip which moves from smooth (legato), to staccato, to staccatissimo notes.

It looks like this: and sounds like this:
Play
Pause
You will note that, despite staccato and staccatissimo, the beat remains absolutely regular. .

The amount of clipping is up to the performer. There is no notation which exactly expresses how much staccato.

A note can be lengthened by a PAUSE (Fermata). The amount of lengthening is up to the performer. There is no notation which exactly expresses how much to pause.
Pauses disturb the regular flow of the beats.

Here is a clip with a pause on every fourth note.

It is written like this: and sounds like this:
Play
Pause
Pauses can last a long time (several seconds). It's all up to the conductor.

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Rests

RESTS are used for silences. These, too, have time values and can be dotted.

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