I'm on level 80 of Rhythmania now. I could not even read any note time values this time a year ago. It's been a really helpful tool to put the theory I'm learning into practice. I do get frustrated quite often because on many levels triplet 8s and 16s are used in time signatures where the 8th note gets the beat already. This is incorrect. The problem occurs when you are trying to write the counts out. It makes no sense to someone just learning how to calculate rhythms. Now I can at least still pass these levels because I know what triplets feel like. I hope that tonegym corrects these mistakes. It's on quite a few levels, not just in a few places either. I'm sure it is not easy to alter the software after it's been programed, but I want tonegym to be the best out there and for students to learn correctly. That's why I'm mentioning this.
@Jesse Lyons: Yes, I see what you mean now. That is the very sort of thing I meant by strangely-notated rhythms. I would say this is something analogous to being syntactically correct but not grammatically correct or not conventionally correct. I.e. the number of eighth notes in each bar does add up to 6 (each triplet and each quarter-note spanning two eighth-notes), but you are right that that rhythm would be felt more as being in 3 than in 2, and by convention would usually be notated in 3/4 rather than 6/8.
However, you might see something like this in the midst of a piece that is mostly felt in 2, as 6/8, but switches to a three feel for a couple of measures. In such a case, is it better to temporarily change the time signature, or just let the notation weirdness emphasize the temporary shift in feel?
@Jesse Lyons: Following up on my previous comment, by coincidence I happened to come across an example of what I'm talking about when we had our first choir rehearsal of the season last night. One of the pieces we are doing is Laura Hawley's arrangement of In dulci jubilo. It is notated in 6/8, and for the most part it does have a 2 feel as one would expect. However, it does switch to a 3 feel for a measure or two from time to time, without bothering to change the time signature. Here is one place it does that, and taking it further, it actually has some voices in 2 and some in 3 in the same measure, then changes in the next measure (one reason it wouldn't make much sense for it to switch to a 3/4 notation just for a couple of measures).
So, in isolation the example you gave certainly looks weird, but it is not entirely rare to see that sort of thing in actual scores, and it makes sense in context. Adding in the triplets gives it an extra challenge, though. :)
Sep 10, 20:26