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I've recently been creating my own rendition of Amazing Grace, and while I was working to add a bit of stylistic elements to it, I imagined a melody in my head which would require 3 beats in the space of one eighth note.

I am aware that this sort of thing exists, as I have often heard it, but I have not managed to find either the name of this note, or how it is written.

To add a bit more clarity, I am looking for three equal beats in the space of one eighth beat. Here is an image of what said note might look like (at least how I imagined)

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That would be called a "sextuplet", or sometimes a "sixteenth-note triplet". It's notated with a "3" or a "6" above a group of notes with two flags/beams. It's a type of tuplet- so, a "3" with two beams indicates three notes in the space of one eigth note, and a "6" with two beams indicates 6 notes in the space of a quarter note. See this example:

enter image description here

It's unclear exactly what rhythm you want, from your example notation.

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  • Thanks so much, the first example is exactly what I was looking for!
    – Finn_Lancaster
    Commented Aug 9, 2021 at 21:42
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    If there's 6 of them, it's a sextuplet. If just 3, a triplet.
    – Laurence
    Commented Aug 9, 2021 at 22:52
  • Hold on, not "eighth-note triplet"? Referring to the fact it's dividing an eighth note into three equal parts
    – Divide1918
    Commented Aug 10, 2021 at 13:53
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    I believe they're called "sixteenth note triplets" because the notation uses two beams/flags, like sixteenth notes.
    – Edward
    Commented Aug 10, 2021 at 21:22
  • Yes. Triplets come in any note length. All that matters is that three of them fill the time normally taken by two. They're always 'triplets'.
    – Laurence
    Commented Aug 11, 2021 at 23:26

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