Thirty-second note

What it means

The thirty-second note lasts a thirty-second of a whole note, that is, half of a sixteenth. In four-four time, eight of them go into one beat. It belongs among the small values that do not occur in every piece, but regularly in certain contexts.

Still smaller values exist — sixty-fourths and below — but they remain exceptions. Whether a value is small, incidentally, says nothing about its sounding duration: in a very slow movement, a thirty-second can sound longer than an eighth in a fast one.

In the notation

The note has a filled-in head, a stem, and three flags; in groups, three beams are drawn. The number of beams is the identifying feature: one for eighths, two for sixteenths, three for thirty-seconds. With dense groups the noteheads move close together, which makes reading harder; good editions structure such passages through beaming by beats.

Thirty-seconds often appear in connection with double-dotted values, for instance as a short note after a double-dotted eighth.

Musical use

Small values occur above all in slow movements, where they fill the space between the beats and embellish the melody; in an Adagio, thirty-seconds are nothing unusual. They are likewise found in written-out ornaments, in cadenzas, and in sharply dotted rhythms, where the short note is meant to be especially crisp. In very fast movements they hardly occur, because they would no longer be executable there.

It has three flags. In English it is called the thirty-second note.

Performance practice

Count in the smallest occurring unit as long as the passage does not yet sit, and group the notes by beats. Take care that the short note after a dot really stays short — this is where slurring most often occurs. Practise dense groups at first distinctly slower, with the same articulation. And read the beams precisely before you choose the tempo: three beams are easily mistaken for two at a quick glance.