# Guitar pro help - duplets



## walleye (Oct 21, 2011)

i just realised guitar pro doesn't do duplets (i think duplet is the right name, if in 3/8 6/8 etc. you want two notes to span 3 quarter notes in 6/8. so 4 duplet notes fill a bar of 6/8 )

anyone have any way around this? this is a pretty serious flaw


----------



## walleye (Oct 21, 2011)

ps i just realised i'm running guitar pro 5. if any guitar pro 6 users could kindly check theirs to see if they offer duplets?

pps: dotted triplet quaver tied with dotted triplet semiquaver = 1 duplet . silly and labourious but it works


----------



## niffnoff (Oct 21, 2011)

So you want 4 notes to span 6/8 in quavers? Am I reading this right?


----------



## SirMyghin (Oct 21, 2011)

4 dotted 8ths will fill a bar of 6/8... As far as calling it a 'duplet', you be making up words. 

Dot = 1.5x duration , triplet = 3 in the time of 2, so what you are doing is taking a dotted 8th (1.5), and a dotted sixteenth( 0.75, in 6/8 that is 2.25 beats) and then making it in the time of, then making it 2/3 as long with a triplet so 1.5 beats each, and 4 fill a bar. But you could have just used a dotted 8th the whole time.

In my experience Duplet rhythm is pretty much standard rhythms, eigths, sixteenths, etc, where the number of notes per beat is 2,4,8,16, and so on. Triplet rhythms are when the notes per beat are a multiple of 3. Then again you are in australia meaning you probably use that odd british way of describing things (judging by works like 'quaver'), so I'll forgive this time.


----------



## walleye (Oct 21, 2011)

dotted quavers is the answer. it was late at night for me 
thanks


----------



## walleye (Oct 21, 2011)

i've seen duplets written before, they are the same as dotted quavers, but ive seen them written as 2 "quavers" with a 2 above the connecting line, same as how triplets have a 3 above the connecting line. there will always be more than one way to write something


----------



## Aspiringmaestro (Oct 21, 2011)

Guitar Pro 6 allows you to do that.


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Oct 21, 2011)

This is what you want:







I don't use Guitar Pro, so I can't help you. Others have mentioned the way to bullshit it with dotted eighths, and that might be your best bet. Although, that wouldn't help if you want to do something like quintuplets:






It would seem people find this idea confusing.

http://www.ultimate-guitar.com/forum/showthread.php?t=850499



> I think I know what you mean. If a triplet is three notes in one beat, then a duplet would be two notes in one beat?
> 
> Assuming you're in 4/4, that's an 8th note. Duplets don't exist.




This thread seems to indicate that it is, however, possible to create tuplets of any sort in GP:

Where are the usual quintuplets, sextuplets etc.


----------



## SirMyghin (Oct 21, 2011)

SchecterWhore said:


> This thread seems to indicate that it is, however, possible to create tuplets of any sort in GP:
> 
> Where are the usual quintuplets, sextuplets etc.




yes GP6 has a "n:m" under the triplet extra bar thing dealy that I am sure has another name that I don't care about, and it lets you put in any damned grouping in the time of another grouping you feel like. I still think the idea of 2 against 3 (n:m) is more confusing to read than dotted notes.


----------



## walleye (Oct 21, 2011)

to each their own. rhythm is interpretive, there's no one way to write something.


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Oct 21, 2011)

It's a matter of context. Doing four dotted eighth notes is technically incorrect in a measure of 6/8, because it obscures the division of the measure. Think of it this way: 6 is a compound meter, so the division of the beat is 3. In other words, there are two big beats with three smaller beats inside. What happens when you go to dotted eighth territory is that you start putting accents on the subdivision of the beat, and it looks off. It's not really a syncopation that we're dealing with, but a notated change of the beat's division. Therefore, it makes more sense to conceptualize the measure as two big beats with two smaller beats inside. This way, the count doesn't get weird and the feeling of the rhythm is accurately represented. Below is a representation of all of this.

Measure 1 is the straight 6 with compound division. Notice the beaming. Measure 2 is with the dotted eighth notes. It looks syncopated. Measure 3 is the expanded (and more elucidated) way to notate measure 2. Measure 4 is with the duplet. Notice that the way that the measure is counted changes with each permutation. In notation, it is best to strive for simplicity.






There are some instances where the beat is not accurately represented, but we let it slide all the time. This usually occurs with rhythms that are easy enough that it actually makes it less confusing to ignore the division of the measure.


----------



## walleye (Oct 21, 2011)

if you join the dotted quavers in the second bar it becomes clearer. the third dotted quaver is on beat 2. making the beats as clear as possible is probably the best way to write things


----------



## SirMyghin (Oct 21, 2011)

SchecterWhore said:


> It's a matter of context. Doing four dotted eighth notes is technically incorrect in a measure of 6/8, because it obscures the division of the measure. Think of it this way: 6 is a compound meter, so the division of the beat is 3. In other words, there are two big beats with three smaller beats inside. What happens when you go to dotted eighth territory is that you start putting accents on the subdivision of the beat, and it looks off. It's not really a syncopation that we're dealing with, but a notated change of the beat's division. Therefore, it makes more sense to conceptualize the measure as two big beats with two smaller beats inside. This way, the count doesn't get weird and the feeling of the rhythm is accurately represented. Below is a representation of all of this.
> 
> Measure 1 is the straight 6 with compound division. Notice the beaming. Measure 2 is with the dotted eighth notes. It looks syncopated. Measure 3 is the expanded (and more elucidated) way to notate measure 2. Measure 4 is with the duplet. Notice that the way that the measure is counted changes with each permutation. In notation, it is best to strive for simplicity.
> 
> ...




Might be due to the whole weird russian sound variant dealy (Kodaly?) I generally use to count my way through things (not 1 e an a or the like). It is hard to deprogram that stuff.


----------



## brutalwizard (Oct 22, 2011)

i am loving the word duplet


----------



## Mr. Big Noodles (Oct 22, 2011)

walleye said:


> if you join the dotted quavers in the second bar it becomes clearer. the third dotted quaver is on beat 2. making the beats as clear as possible is probably the best way to write things



But the second and fourth dotted eighth note do not occur on the beat. We can beam them together, but as I represent in the third bar, the second event is occurring on the level of the subdivision, which is another step you have to think of when playing. On a professional score, you're far more likely to see that rhythm notated as a duplet, simply because that's what it is.



SirMyghin said:


> Might be due to the whole weird russian sound variant dealy (Kodaly?) I generally use to count my way through things (not 1 e an a or the like). It is hard to deprogram that stuff.



I don't like Kodaly, as it doesn't really give you the beat reference and assumes that everything's peachy if you fix a duration to a syllable.

M.1 - Ti-ti-ti Ti-ti-ti
M.2 - Tim-Tim Tim-Tim
M.3 - Same as above... I think.
M.4 - Tre-la Tre-la (I actually don't know what the Kodaly syllable for a duplet in compound time is, and am having difficulty finding that information. Tre-o-la is a triplet in simple time, so I'm just modifying that.)

I can see how it's "six of one, half a dozen of another" with the Kodaly method. The problem is that if you walk in on somebody saying "ti ti ti ti ti ti ti ti ti ti ti ti", you have no idea what the meter is, where the beat is, or how it's divided. I imagine it gets ugly when tied rhythms are involved. My musicianship classes use a another syllable system that addresses this issue, but I'm not sure what it's called. The beat is always "Ta", "Ta te" is a duplet, "Ta te ti" is a triplet. This system doesn't care what the duration is, because you can always just hold a note - its concern is grounded in where things occur in the beat.

M. 1 - Ta te ti Ta te ti
M. 2 - Ta fe Ta fe (subdivided, the grouping is "Ta fa te fe ti fi")
M. 3 - Same as above.
M. 4 - Ta te Ta te (simpler, don't have to go to subdivision level)


Naturally, it's not perfect. A measure of 2 with a triplet division in the second beat is this:

Ta te Ta te ti

A measure of 5 with a constant beat is this:

Ta te Ta te ti

Unless you heard me saying those syllables in rhythm, you wouldn't really know the difference between those two examples. However, it allows you to do syncopation reliably, provided you keep the sound of the division consistent with the music. I feel that the Kodaly method is taught in order to engage younger students and work with simpler rhythms, whereas the other method I described can have you doing subdivided triplets (Ta fa te fe ti fi) and cross-beat triplets (Ta ti te, from "Ta te ti Ta te ti") right off the bat. But I don't know, maybe I have it wrong.


----------



## SirMyghin (Oct 22, 2011)

And all that long post for something we will probably never know. It is as I have used it more a method to internalize note duration than something you use actively. Never used it to describe a musical idea, I suscept people to my terrible voice then. I have never played with another musician that has been able to respond to anything but 'I'm going to play this'. I agree it would be a terrible way to explain a musical idea, as you mentioned it is too non-contextual.

And to keep this remotely on topic, I have the button you want highlighted, inside the box of red. It shows 2 against 3 on the score, but whatcha gonna do. The n:m makes me want to write 15 against 37 or something. Everything except drums is better in GP6 anyway so it is a worthwhile upgrade, albeit I hear 7 is on the horizon? Oddly it runs better with the RSE on (and the timbre between strings is awful in simulation)


----------

