Ok, so quick question.
On this small part of my Yosare Bushi score, I see this all over the place:
I recognize the bow over the “430” phrase as a slide, but I am unsure of how that’s integrated, nor do I know what the little tiny “3” is above the bow. Anyone know?
The 3 means you play three notes in the same time as you would have played two notes, evenly distributed. You are not supposed to slide in this case. Generally in shamisen scores you use the lines under the numbers to indicate the duration of the note. Thus you can’t indicate this type of playing by just positioning the numbers along the bar. That’s why you draw the line and write the 3.
EDIT: A common way of getting into the feeling of playing like that is to stomp your foot and say “one two three” starting on the stomp, and repeating. Then you move over to stomping and playing the three notes on your instrument instead.
Hmmm. I’ll give it a shot. Is it just common knowledge that the smaller number is the amount of notes played in that span? I’m looking at it and the assignment is looking really arbitrary.
Someone else will have to answer if it’s always been like that, but I haven’t seen it written out in any other way. But I can assure you that in this case that is what they mean. The 430 phrase is very common. If it was a slide it would have been just 4 to 0.
I still find all of this confusing, so it’s good that you ask.
Karl is right. It’s their way of indicating a triplet! Borrowing from the western method of writing a triplet. A triplet simply means (as Karl mentioned) 3 notes in the time of 2 notes.
A cliche way to think of it is to count 1&2&3&4&, 1&2&3&4& etc.
Next keeping the exact SAME tempo in the place of 1&, count instead 123. This transforms the pattern into…
123, 123, 123, 123 or more specifically
123, 223, 323, 423 etc.
However Yosare bushi is of course in a three meter to begin with so it would be more like…
123,123,123.
Or 123, 223, 323 (to be more specific )
So the way a triplet will superimpose itself over a meter in three will be to interact between the even beats.
Like… 123, 12, 12 for example.
( in this case the first beat is counted in three and the other two beats in two Yet the overall rhythm uses the pulse of three)
Ah ok, so I think I’m getting an idea of what you’re talking about, although I’ll have to play around with it some more.
I think I got swept away by some of the sweet vibrato action that some of the higher end players just kinda throw in whatever they’re playing and I thought I saw it in the notation. Yosare just sounds especially amazing to me with all that extra stuff 