mystery (to me) notation symbols

[ThomasB]

Hello, I hope I have posted in the correct place. Over the last several years or so have taught myself to play the English Concertina. I have for the last few months been teaching myself to read music so I can learn more tunes, mostly traditional Irish, Scottish and English tunes. I printed from online somewhere a tune titled "French Air". There are symbols that I don't understand and hoping someone can help. The tune is all dyads, except for two hole notes, it's in 3/4 time. I have attached an image of the tune and hope you can see it. As you can see I wrote on the top right Breath Mark, I found what that was online.

My Questions:
1-Why are there numbers to the left of every note?
2-The first four Dyads are repeated two more times in the piece and each time after the fourth dyad there are two dots on C & E, like repeats, is that what they are?
3-Do you repeat those four Dyads before continuing?

I believe this is an old transcription of the tune, so maybe these marks are archaic. I have three English Concertinas, one, my first, is a Stagi Tenor/treble from the 1980's, in concert pitch. The next, from 1847 in Quarter Comma mean-tone with A=445Hz. My third one, A=452Hz,which I have not yet received from the person I bought it from, is from 1895 in what was called Old Philharmonic Pitch. The dyads sound so much better on the 1847 instrument compared to ET on the Stagi. I've been trying to understand how to play some harmony on the concertina and this tune is one of my first ventures into Harmony rather than just playing Melody.
Thanks so much to anyone who can help me on my journey of understanding musical notation. Tom
Sorry picture went twice!

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[Wescott]

Those are editorial suggested fingerings. You're not bound to those.

The two dots on A & C in the treble or C & E in the bass plus the thick barline is an end repeat when the dots are to the left of the thick barline. That tells you to go back either to the beginning of the piece or else to the most recent start repeat if there is one and play that section again. The start repeat has the dots to the right of the thick barline.

[ThomasB]

Wescott, I know the dots at the thick bar lines are to tell you to repeat from the beginning etc. The two parts of the tune, A & B, are each played twice. What are the two dots on B & D where there is no bar line. They are there with no bar line in those three different places within the tune after the dyads B & D? Thanks for the answer to the editorial fingerings, I guess that's for piano?

[struwwelpeter]

They're augmentation dots, showing the B and D are held for half as long again as marked, so a crotchet plus a quaver (quarter note plus eighth note). Add up the beats in each bar to prove it. In modern scores they're closer to the noteheads, which is why this looks a little odd.

[ThomasB]

Oh okay, I get it, thanks so much for helping me. I play mostly by ear and if I can't hear the tune it's sometimes hard to get the rhythm and timing of the tune just by the notation symbols. I'm getting there though. Thank you struwwelpeter.

[John Ruggero]

The tune is all dyads, except for two hole notes, it's in 3/4 time.

I found "hole notes" amusing, because it is such an apt description of an "open" note, as opposed to one filled in. Actually a "whole note" is open, has no stem and is equal to four quarter notes in duration. The open notes with stems in your piece are "half notes" and equal to two quarter notes. The dot adds another quarter to make 3 quarter notes in duration.

You may be confusing "dyad" with a quarter note. A dyad is just two notes played at the same time, as opposed to a complete chord which has at least three notes. A quarter note is half of a half note and twice as long as an eighth note in the hierarchy of note values.

[ThomasB]

John, Thanks for that. I have forgotten that an actual whole note has no stem. It can get confusing at times. In that tune could you have used two quarter notes with a tie and a dot after the last one? Is it the same thing? Is part of the whole notation symbol system in order to, at times, save space, using a "whole" note instead of 4 quarter notes?

I'm not confusing a dyad with a quarter note.What I've come to realize is that I was confused by the two dots after the fourth dyad. The fact that they are so far away from the quarter note and that there are two of them I somehow thought they had something to do with end repeats, and the fact that there was no heavy bar had me scratching my head. I realize there are two dots because there are two notes, a dyad. Duh! I think if they were next to the notes as is normally done I would have figured it out. Just getting into playing harmony, reading it actually, is new to me but I'm getting there thanks to you and those who have answered my questions. Thanks again to all.

[John Ruggero]

The dot adds on 1/2 the value of the particular note vale that it follows. A dot after a ahlf note would add on half of a half note which is a quarter note. A dot after a whole note would add on half of a whole note, which is a half note. So tied to would not equal three quarter notes tied together. It would equal 2 1/2 quarter notes tied together, or five 1/8 notes tied together.

Yes, we could tie bunches of notes together to make larger note values, but that would lead to very complicated looking music that would be hard to read. So ties are reserved for places where we don't have a single note to represent the total duration.

Your misunderstanding of the dot is complete understandable, since this is an archaic way of positioning the dot that is no longer used. Even people experienced with music notation can make errors when reading such dots, which is why we no longer position them far from the notes.

[ThomasB]

Thank you again John. It all makes sense, now I just have to remember it!