OK, so it seemed a good idea in November - teaching myself from nothing to grade 5 Theory in 3 months and with just over a week and a half to go!!!!!!!!!

One nagging doubt I have is my understanding of note groupings, especially in stupid time sigs.

5/8 is in simple time but it follows note groupings of 2+3 or 3+2. If the grouping is 3+2 and I want to put a note of a minim duration, do I have to put a dotted crotchet tied to a quaver as would be done in compound time or can I get away with just putting a minim?

Many thanks for your help

5/8 is an irregular time signature, not a simple one. Isn't that the heading for the first chapter of Book 5 of MTIP (from memory)?

I'd put a dotted crotchet tied to a quaver.

How are you getting on with everything else?

Good luck with the exam!

So 5/8 is Irregular Quintuple time?

> "I'd put a dotted crotchet tied to a quaver."

I was wondering the same, but in bar 3 ex. 40 of Grade 5 MTIP , it shows an example of 5/8 with the grouping 3+2 but with a crotchet, crotchet, quaver. If we were to apply the same rules as compound time, should this not then be a crotchet, two tied quavers, quaver?

> "How are you getting on with everything else?"

Not too bad thanks. I've been pacing myself to study a grade every 2 weeks and have managed to stick to it. I've had flu all of this week and so have found trying to revise really tough.

I think I would describe it (if forced!) as duple time with asymmetric (i.e. of unequal length) beats, either a group of 3 quavers (eighths) + a group of 2 quavers or vice versa, so the whole beats would be dotted-crotchet (dotted-quarter) + crotchet or crotchet + dotted crotchet. I enjoy asymmetric rhythms. There are Eastern European dances which use them (e.g. Greek, Bulgarian, Roumanian). There are some in the later volumes of Bartok's Mikrokosmos for piano.

Composers often vary the grouping during a piece rather than commit themselves to the same grouping all the way through, which can make the asymmetric metres really quirky. Given that possibility, the crotchet, crotchet quaver could just imply that in that bar the grouping is 2+3 for a change. Sometimes composers specify a time signature of 3+2 over 5, in which case I wouldn't quite agree with either MTIP or you. Following the usual rules I think it should then be crotchet, single quaver (completing the group of 3 quavers) tied to the first of a pair of quavers (the group of 2 quavers).

Well done!

That's very bad luck. I hope you will soon be fully fit again.

Many thanks to you both for your replys.

This makes sense and I have now found an example of this in the 1999 Grade 5 Theory paper B in question 1b. A dotted crotchet high G is tied to a crotchet high G following the 3+2 grouping.