Notation & reading
Tuplet
A tuplet is a group of notes played in the time normally occupied by a different number of them, written with a bracket and a numeral, most commonly a triplet, three notes in the space of two.
The numeral says how many notes are in the group; the surrounding rhythm says how much time they share. A triplet of eighth notes fills one quarter-note beat that would ordinarily hold two eighths, so each note is two-thirds of its written value.
Duplets and quadruplets do the reverse, fitting two or four notes into a space normally divided into three, which is why they appear mostly in compound metres like 6/8.
The reliable way to learn an unfamiliar tuplet is to say it rather than count it: a spoken word of the right number of syllables, repeated in time, gets the proportion into the body faster than subdividing arithmetic does.
Related terms
Every term in this glossary is taught in context somewhere in Arco's curricula, on the staff, on the keyboard, and on your own fingerboard at the same time.