Little notes on staff of Irish washerwoman?

[laurasil]

I was checking out the songs for next month’s challenge and came across something I’d love to understand. I saw some small notes at the beginning of some bars (e.g bar 1), but I don’t understand their meaning or value, seeing that it’s a 6/8 song and there are already 6 eight notes on that first bar.

How would they be played? Should I ignore them?

Thanks 🙂

• This topic was modified 4 years, 9 months ago by laurasil.

[Andrew]

Those are grace notes. A grace note can be thought of as adding an extra bit of flourish to the following note. There are 2 types:

1) On the beat (no line through the stem)
2) before the beat

So that song has the 5th fret, string 1 (D Note) as a grace note on the beat. You want to do a fast pull-off from 5 to 4 on beat 1. Def don’t skip the pull-off or the music won’t sound right.

[Andrew]

P.S. Unfortunately the tab player only allows me to input “grace notes before the beat”; which are displayed with a line through the note. This would be plucking slightly before beat one.

I’ve requested they add the other grace note functionality to the player. Just pointing this out, so you don’t get confused comparing tab (which is correct) to tab player (incorrect).

[laurasil]

Ok!! Thank you 🙂

[Andrew]

My pleasure!

[Author]

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