Dotted Notes

In the following bars the crotchet in bar 3 has a dot after it. It also lasts 3 half beats, since there are 3 half beats from the time signature and the note in bar 3 is the only note in the bar.

A crotchet lasts 2 half beats, so the dot means add one half beat to the duration of the note making one and a half beats altogether..

In general, adding a dot to a note adds half the duration of the note. Adding two dots adds three quarters, and 3 dots (seldom used) would add seven eighths!

Compound time

Here are three time signatures that are rather special:

Six beats to a bar	Nine beats to a bar	Twelve beats to a bar
Each beat is a quaver
Six-eight time	Nine-eight time	Twelve-eight time

These time signatures are special because the bars are divided into groups of three beats and there are special rules for writing bars in compound time.

Thus, six-eight time is counted as 2 groups of 3:

1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6 1 2 3 4 5 6

Sometimes this is counted as :

1       2       1       2       1       2

Similiarly nine-eight time is considered as 3 groups of 3.

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9

Sometimes this is counted as :

1       2       3       1       2       3        1       2       3

The notes in Compound time bars are written as if they were in groups of 3/8 - thus:

Note the use of dotted notes.

You can also have 6/4, 9/4, 12/4, 6/2, 9/2 and 12/2 but they are very rare.