I've got brain-freeze on a theory question from a grade 4 past paper (2006, paper B, Q6).
It involves re-writing a melody from 3/4 using notes/rests of half the value. I'm stuck trying to put a bar which consists of - a dotted quaver, a semiquaver, a dotted crotchet + a quaver in 3/4 time into 3/8. I make it - a dotted semiquaver, a demisemiquaver, a dotted quaver and a semiquaver in 3/8 time. I think this is right but my question, really, is how do I beam these notes together? I thought maybe I should beam the dotted semiquaver and demisemiquaver together as two notes and then beam the dotted quaver and semiquaver together as another pair of notes.... is this correct? I'm confused about how to make each new beat clear in 3/8 time.

In 3/8 the thing to do is to join together the 3 quavers if a bar happens to consist of 3 plain quavers. Hence, in this case, you can beam ALL the notes together with a long beam, dotting those which need dots. Just add the small beams [do they have a name?] for the 2 shorter notes you describe.

EDIT: I forgot to say, you also beam the first 2 semiquavers as a pair then add the little beam bits for the demi and the final semi.

Oh! I see. It looked a bit funny when I tried that - I think i've just not noticed this beaming in 3/8 music before.

So... to clarify... is the only time that this 'beam everything together' rule doesn't apply in 3/8 when one of the notes is a crotchet?

Thanks!

You cannot beam a crotchet to anything or else it stops being a crotchet, as you know. As I recall beaming is explained in either the Grade 1 or 2 AB theory workbook (as well as other places) but I can't check because I only have copies at school. I know how you feel about this topic; the rules have changed since I was a boy when we usually kept quavers beamed in pairs. That's progress for you. However, at that time we NEVER used beaming when setting lyrics to music (unless it was a melisma) which was a real pain, so some developments are welcome!

Thanks. There's surprisingly little on beaming in 3/8 in "First steps" or "AB guide" - I think probably because it should be quite self-explanatory It's just me doubting every thing I do ... now is the time to get it sorted though, early on.... i've seen some shockingly misleading and unhelpful beaming recently (and wrong time signatures) in some music at church (not well known, famous things, but odd little bits and pieces that people have written) and have presumed it was me until I checked it against the rules in the books! Some beaming is definitely more helpful than others... I can see why there's quite often a question on it in exams. Thank you for the jpg