Dotted note note is used less frequently than the dotted note. Typically, as in the example to the right, it is followed by a note whose duration is one-quarter the length of the basic note value, completing the next higher note value. Before the mid 18th century, double dots were not used. Until then, in some circumstances, single dots could mean double dots. In a French overture (and sometimes other Baroque music), notes written as dotted notes are often interpreted to mean double-dotted notes, and the following note is commensurately shortened; see Historically informed performance. A triple-dotted note is a note with
How Sacred Harp music is sung is a note whose duration is increased by half the duration of the base note. It is so called because musical notation uses a dot to express this durational ratio. Traditional Sacred Harp singers often "add dots" to their music, in the sense that they will make the notes falling on the strong musical beat about one and a half times as long as written, with the following note shortened to half of its written duration in compensation. The great majority of the cases seem to involve substitution of the sequence "dotted eighth + sixteenth" for what is written as