Question about time signatures and notes in a measure

Notation
1

On the PDF’s posted in Kyle’s patreon the time signature and number of notes in the measure don’t seem to be match up.

Take for example:
image

The Time signature is 2/4 which means that each measure should have either two quarter notes, one half note, or an equivalent thereof

However the measure has a half note, two quarter notes and then two half notes if I’m reading it correctly.

So the question is should the measures be smaller or am I notation incorrectly?

2

Hey Corey,

In shamisen bunkafu tablature, quarter notes have no underline. 8th notes have a single underline and 16th notes have two. So, that measure is comprised of three 8th notes and two 16th notes. If you think of the underlines as the tails on notes in Western notation, it makes more sense.

Half notes aren’t as common in notation, but if you do come across one, it’s represented by a quarter note followed by a dash.

Hope that helps.

3

Thanks,
for clarifying the notation.