Dotted note
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Image:Dotted notes3.gif In Western musical notation, a dotted note is a note with a small dot written after it. The dot adds a half as much again to the basic note's duration. If the basic note lasts 2 beats, the corresponding dotted note lasts 3 beats.
Any note value may be dotted.
The use of a dot for augmentation of a note dates back at least to the 10th century, although the exact amount of augmentation is disputed; see Neume.
More than one dot may be added; each dot adds half of the duration added by the previous dot, as shown in example 1.
Double dotting
A double-dotted note is a note with two small dots written after it. Its duration is 1 3/4 times (1 + 1/2 + 1/4) its basic note value.
The double-dotted note is used less frequently than the dotted note. Typically, as in the example below, it is followed by a note whose duration is one-quarter the length of the basic note value, completing the next higher note value.
Example 2 is a fragment of the second movement of Joseph Haydn's String Quartet, Opus 74, No. 2, a theme and variations. The first note is double-dotted.
- Haydn's theme was adapted for piano by an unknown composer; the adapted version can be heard here (3.7 kB MIDI file).
In a French overture (and sometimes other Baroque music), notes written as dotted notes are often interpreted to mean double-dotted notes, and the following note is commensurately shortened; see authentic performance.
Triple dotting
A triple-dotted note is a note with three dots written after it; its duration is 1 7/8 times (1 + 1/2 + 1/4 + 1/8) its basic note value. Use of a triple-dotted note value is quite rare. See example 3.
An example of the use of double- and triple-dotted notes is the Prelude in G Major for piano, op. 28 No. 3, by Frédéric Chopin. The piece, in common time (4/4), contains running semiquavers in the left hand. Several times during the piece Chopin asks for the right hand to play a triple-dotted minim (lasting 15 semiquavers) simultaneously with the first left-hand semiquaver, then one semiquaver simultaneously with the 16th left-hand semiquaver.
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