Three beats and compound time

Use the bass to locate all three beats

In the 3/4 score, read the two staves as simultaneous parts rather than finishing the upper staff before considering the lower one. Bar 1 begins with right-hand E4 and left-hand C3 together. Beat 2 pairs right-hand G4 with left-hand E3. Beat 3 pairs right-hand E4 with left-hand G3. The right-hand fingers are 3, 5, 3; the left-hand fingers are 5, 3, 1. Each vertical pairing belongs to one quarter-note beat, although the two parts move in different directions at different moments.

The right hand rises from E to G and returns to E. The left hand rises throughout C, E, G. Those are familiar C-major chord tones spread across the bar. They are not a simultaneous left-hand chord, and they are not three extra beats to insert between melody notes. If you play the right E, then the left C, you have separated an attack that should be together. A slow spoken count helps distinguish simultaneous notes from successive ones.

Bar 2 changes the relationship. The right hand plays D4 with finger 2 and holds it for the whole bar. The left continues G2, B2, D3 with fingers 5, 3, 1. On beat 1 both hands attack. On beats 2 and 3 only the left makes a new attack. The upper dotted half still occupies those beats. Silence between right-hand attacks does not mean the meter has stopped or that the bass must wait for another melody note.

Read through the join before playing it. Bar 1 beat 3 contains E4 above G3. The next numbered beat is bar 2 beat 1, D4 above G2. There is no fourth beat between these pairs. The bass must move to its lower starting point while the right hand moves down one step. Release and relocate the left hand rather than trying to preserve its old upper note. The score asks for a new position at the next beat, not a held span between the two Gs.

Account for held notes without inventing attacks

The dotted half in the 3/4 melody combines a half note's two quarter beats with one more quarter beat. Count its duration as three beats beginning at the attack. At the next bar boundary its duration would be complete. You do not attack it again when you say 2 or 3. The count marks elapsed beat positions; it does not command a fresh press whenever a number is spoken.

A useful dry test uses the score without the instrument. Say the right-hand pitches of bar 1 on the three numbers. For bar 2, say D on 1 and continue counting 2 and 3 without saying D again. Meanwhile, tap a separate surface once on every number to represent the left hand. The spoken note and the tapping now have different attack patterns, but both remain inside the same three-beat bar. This preserves the coordination problem while removing key finding.

When you return to the instrument, keep the right D held as the left changes from G2 to B2 to D3. If both hands release after beat 1, the upper note has lost two beats. If the right repeats D on each bass note, its duration has changed into three quarters. Both errors can sound organized because the hands act together, but neither matches the notation. Watch the upper note's duration while reading the lower attacks rather than using hand simultaneity as your definition of correctness.

Manual Next note follows the next attack in either hand. In this second bar, a step can advance the bass while the held right D remains highlighted. That is a visual reminder of simultaneous time, not a request for the right hand to repeat. The synthesized reference includes a small release gap, so judge the written duration from the note value rather than trying to reproduce every detail of the electronic envelope. The browser does not assess whether your finger held D or whether a pedal prolonged it. No pedal is needed for this exercise.

Find the two groups inside six eighth notes

The 6/8 melody begins C4, D4, E4, G4, E4, D4, all eighth notes. Read the first three as the subdivisions of one main beat and the last three as the subdivisions of the next. Say 1-and-a for C, D, E, then 2-and-a for G, E, D. The fingers are 1, 2, 3, 5, 3, 2. The leap from E4 to G4 begins the second group; it does not add an extra subdivision between the two groups.

The left hand makes that grouping explicit. C3 begins with the first right-hand C and lasts a dotted quarter. G3 begins with the right-hand G and also lasts a dotted quarter. Each bass note spans three melody eighths. The left hand therefore changes on the numbered syllables, not on every spoken syllable. Read the beams in the upper part alongside those lower dotted quarters. Together they show the same division into two groups.

In bar 2, the right changes to dotted quarters too. C4 occupies the first group, and G4 occupies the second. The left plays C3 then G3 at the same attacks. The subdivision has not disappeared merely because fewer notes sound. Continue to feel three equal smaller units within each held note. If you lengthen the first bass note because the right has stopped moving, the second group arrives late and the bar becomes uneven.

Count the first bar on one repeated key before restoring its pitches. Keep the bass as two taps, one on each number. This isolates the difference between six melody attacks and two bass attacks. Then restore C, D, E under the first bass note and G, E, D under the second. If the second group starts before you have said the final a of the first, you have compressed a subdivision. If you pause after that a, you have inserted time between groups that the score does not contain. Neither problem requires changing the melody's fingering to investigate it.

Check the join between the two 6/8 bars as well. The last right-hand D4 belongs to the final a of beat 2. The next C4 begins on the following 1, together with the bass C3. Do not hold D for a whole main beat just because it is the final note in the group. Its eighth-note value matches the other five melody notes in that bar. Conversely, do not cut the first C4 of bar 2 into an eighth. Its dot belongs to a quarter note and asks it to fill the entire three-part first beat.