
Originally Posted by
dwest2419
Hey JonR I had set my metronome to 60 bpm and the time signature is 3/4 and I notice that Im playing four notes for every three beats and Im currently playing these patterns. Am I playing tripletts or eight notes?
Not sure I understand your question.
By 60 bpm, do you mean one click every second?
By 3/4, do you mean that the clicks have different sounds, with sound 1 on beat 1, and sound 2 on beats 2 and 3? Or just that the music you are playing is in 3/4, and you are counting the clicks as "1-2-3-1-2-3..."?
Do you mean you are counting each click as a beat (so one 3/4 measure lasts 3 seconds - very slow!), or are you dividing the space between each click into 3? That would make the bpm 180, a medium-fast watz tempo typical for 3/4; with the click marking every third beat. (eg just the "1"s, and not the "2" and "3".)
When you say you are "playing four notes for every three beats", does that mean (as walter says), 4 notes evenly spaced over the 3 seconds that the 3 clicks last? This would be quite difficult, and a quite advanced use of the metronome. And you would be playing neither triplets nor 8th notes.
Same applies if you are playing 4 notes per click but the click (one second) represents the whole 3/4 measure.
Or are you playing 4 notes for each click with the clicks representing each beat? (very slow 3/4)? In that case, you are playing 16ths. 4 notes per click, 3 clicks per measure = 12 16ths in each bar. Here's how the latter would look graphically:
Code:
3/4, 60 bpm
BAR: 1 2
Seconds: |1 2 3 4 5 6 etc
CLICKS: |X X X |X X X |
BEATS: |1 2 3 |1 2 3 etc
1/4 notes: |q q q |q q q |
8ths: |e e e e e e |e e e e e e |
16ths: |s s s s s s s s s s s s|s s s s s s s s s s s s|
If the clicks are quarter-notes (as above), then 3 notes per click would be triplets (8th triplets).
BTW, the patterns you are playing are irrelevant!