Both the croma and the sixteenth note are considered regular rhythmic divisions, because they divide the movement into equal parts.
There are also irregular rhythmic divisions, which are sometimes found in a group of odd notes of the same time value.
An example of all of this is the triplet, which is a sequence of three notes in a tempo that normally occupies two notes.
Lets see how to manage the rhythmic division of the triplet.
As an initial example we will try to understand the construction of the three note rhythmic figure by analyzing the triplet in octave.
Using the figures seen below, we can give the notes a fictitious value, which serve as visual aids for the following lesson.
Calculating that the quarter note has a value of 100, the 8th note which is its half and is therefore 50. Two octaves added together
(50 + 50) give a quarter note (100). The triplet of the octave is obtained by inserting another eighth note in the group of two octaves.
It's clear that this operation would give one quarter note with the value of 150, which obviously doesn't coincide with the actual value of 100. You therefore need to lower the value of the 8th note (those in triplet), by "squeezing" them into the value of 100.
As a result we get a series of three notes (100/3), each with a value of 33 1/3.
Doing this in reverse, we don't get the starting value of 100, the exact value of a quarter note.
To avoid this, its possible to change the fraction to whole numbers, giving the first note a value of 34 and the other two 33 (34+33+33=100). musically this can be done by accenting the first of the three notes that make up the triplet, in order to prolong its sound enough to overcome this slight temporal variation.
The picking can be done in two ways, illustrated in the examples below. In the first case a picking is used that maintains the beat (down stroke) on the first note of every triplet, resulting in a series of continuous down up down stokes.
If you try to play the three syllables in sequence, automatically dividing the time of the triplet, you would get:
down up down down up down down up down down up down.
Alternate picking is useful for faster, and more complicated execution times. It's best to practice at first using the picking in the first example. When you are fairly comfortable with that, move on to the second. In the exercises that follow, the picking is written in the first system.
Ex #1 - A quarter movement is alternated with a triplet movement.
Ex #2 - An octave movement is alternated with a triplet movement.
Ex #3 - An octave movement is alternated with a triplet movement.
Another type of rhythmic division that is often used, requires the use of the octave writing and the octave shuffle execution. Usually in these cases the following symbol is used in the score:
Basically, the pair of octaves are intended as a quarter note and an eighth note triplet. This situation comes from the fact that when uniting the first two octaves in a triplet, one quarter note is obtained, always within the triplet. It's clear that the two united octaves were already compressed with respect to a normal octave, and therefore the quarter note is also reduced with respect to normal. This type of rhythmics, very common in blues, jazz, and even pop, is called octave shuffle, or 8 jazz feel, which is that used in blues shuffle. An in-depth study of this can be see in the section dedicated to the blues.
Getting to this point, we propose a series of very interesting studies on rhythmics. These will give you the complete understanding of the base formulas, useful in the playing of numerous rhythmic variations. If there are still some uncertainties, you can return to the rhythmic division section.
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