Polyrhythms

Polyrhythms are basically described as note divisions of one time signature being played over another. They are very common place in traditional west african and indian music, Babatunde Olatunji being one of the most well known percussionists to first use complex polyrhythmic ideas in the west in his 1959 album Drums of Passion(a collection of traditional Nigerian drum/chant music). More recent bands well known to use polyrhythms in their music are Meshuggah, Dream Theatre, Tool, and Frank Zappa's late work.

Thats enough history, lets get to how to use them.

Since rhythmic notation cant really be used in this text form, quarter notes are separated by two "-"s, eighths separated by one, and sixteenths arent separated at all.

All Examples Given Are In 4/4

The most common polyrhythm used is three notes used in the place of one quarter note, the example used are straight 8th note triplets, which are the equivalent of 12/8 time signature played over a 4/4 time signature:

1 2 3 4
E--0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-0-----|
B------------------------------|
G------------------------------|
D------------------------------|
A------------------------------|
E------------------------------|

The numbers above the tab represent the beat in the bar.

Triplets shouldnt be confused with:

1 2 3 4
E--000-000-000-000-------------|
B------------------------------|
G------------------------------|
D------------------------------|
A------------------------------|
E------------------------------|

Which are two sixteenth notes followed by one eighth note(they sound cool, i know, but they arent triplets)

As always start out slow with a metronome and make sure the triplet is even within the beat, the easiest way to make sure your playing it evenly is to say a three syllable word along with playing, like banana:

1 2 3 4
ba na na ba na na ba na na ba na na

This method should be pretty entertaining for you and anyone listening to you practice :).

The next polyrhythm we'l look at are divisions of five:

1 2 3 5
E-00000 00000 00000 00000------|
B------------------------------|
G------------------------------|
D------------------------------|
A------------------------------|
E------------------------------|

thses are pretty difficult to get comfortable with at first, but using the method before can help a lot, the five syllable word I was given back when i first got into polyrhythms was hippopotamus:

1 2 3 3
hip po pot a mus hip po pot a mus hip po pot a mus hip po pot a mus

These may take longer than the triplets to get down, but once you practice them for a while theyl become familliar.

the next one is divisions of 7:

1 2 3 4
E-0000000 0000000 0000000 0000000--|
B----------------------------------|
G----------------------------------|
D----------------------------------|
A----------------------------------|
E----------------------------------|

Since seven syllable words arent really common to those of us that didnt pay attention in english class, we'l take one 3-syllable word and one 4-syllable word and say them one after the other to the metronome in order to familiarise with the "7 feel" (for this one it'l be: banana polyrhythm), after your comfortable with the rhythm, increase speed with the guitar:

1 2 3
ba na na po ly rhy thm ba na na po ly rhy thm ba na na po ly rhy thm

4
ba na na po ly rhy thm

After that, it can keep going on to divisions of 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, and so on.
So this is my introduction to basic polyrhythms for anyone that isnt familiar with them.

Ill have another article along soon that'l dig into more complex polyrhythms, basic division required :)

Comments

[misfitsramones]

i dont get it lol
good work tho

[scrambler_66]

Hmm...never looked at it like that.

[InTheFlesh!]

I understood the gist of it but I think the tabs are messed up. 4/5

[kalamari]

I was always confused between polyrhythms and cross-rhythms, quite different things though Thanks for the article anyway

[WishfulShredder]

It seems a LOT better to understand with proper note values instead of TAB

[insanitybreed]

thats quite the interesting. well done !

[RockFreak000]

write them in guitar pro and post the pictures
i didnt get any of this

[E-dogg66]

Well I'm not sure that this helps anyone Please explain better next time!!!!

[Caressing Death]

I haven't yet looked at this but I'm glad there's something being done on polyrhythms.
Oh and it's spelt Dream Theater.

[metal_freak_cam]

ok im lost...i dont kno what he means by this maybe im jus retarded....

[progbass]

good starting point for us, nice job

[SL!!!]

Mmmmm....polyrhythm is when you have one rhythm, say a beat on one and two, and then another that has a different pattern, like a beat on 2 and 4 and they are played at the same time. So if i understand right he means that you would be playing these triplets, quintuplets, and septuplets over a different rhythm, like a guitar playing just eight notes..because otherwise he's just describing irregular note duration, ie 3 eighth notes in the length of one quarter note, five sixteenths in the length of one quarter note, or 7 sixteenths in the length of one a quarter, or sometimes in the length of 8 sixteenths, which is why the higher tuplets are often written as a ratio, like 5:4

So..this article is ambiguous and doesn't explain things all that well, but gets the gist of it across, i'll give it a 3 out of 5.

[SL!!!]

OH, also, tuplets played over simple meter are known as irrational rhythm, which is what this article seems to be about.

[musicology]

These are just borrow rhythms, not polyrhythms.

[iron_maiden93]

music-nerds

[slipmaggot93]

iron_maiden93 wrote:

music-nerds

go die. this is simple stuff, you learn it pretty much in any good music class.

[thor338]

I liked the article. Maybe I am not smart enough to find it confusing.

[cashewchaching]

In order to fully explain duplets, you need to be able to read music. There is no way to difinitavely write out duplets with Tab.

[corrda00]

huh?

[joshgiesbrecht]

Hey. I've never thought of that kind of stuff like that... Thats a decent and easy way of looking at it.. Even though that would be more metal kind of stuff, I'm still impressed with this lesson

[Demonikk]

'Bleed' off the new Meshuggah album has a 4/4 beat with a 15/16 polyrhythm, it's mad stuff to listen to

[laurius3]

SL!!! :
Mmmmm....polyrhythm is when you have one rhythm, say a beat on one and two, and then another that has a different pattern, like a beat on 2 and 4 and they are played at the same time. So if i understand right he means that you would be playing these triplets, quintuplets, and septuplets over a different rhythm, like a guitar playing just eight notes..because otherwise he's just describing irregular note duration, ie 3 eighth notes in the length of one quarter note, five sixteenths in the length of one quarter note, or 7 sixteenths in the length of one a quarter, or sometimes in the length of 8 sixteenths, which is why the higher tuplets are often written as a ratio, like 5:4

So..this article is ambiguous and doesn't explain things all that well, but gets the gist of it across, i'll give it a 3 out of 5.

I agree with that
it would look like this

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 0 1 2
triplets x x x x x x x x x x x x
8th x x x x x x x x

which sounds weird and is not easy to count with 24th.

[laurius3]

-----1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-0-1-2-
triplets x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-
8th----- x--x--x--x--x--x--x--x--

the spaces disapeared when i posted it.

[broken circle]

Caressing Death :
Oh and it's spelt Dream Theater.

If you're British it's not.

[Shade7777]

I think the article would be a lot clearer for people if it contained some audio examples...

[replica_]

never looked at it like that but well explained.....meshuggah most of the time play ijn 4/4 but the guitar plays like for instance 5/4 but then at the 4th bar theyd take a note or 2 away from the end of the last bar basically so it fits intot he 4/4 beat. perhaps putting in something that explains that logical in the next lesson...

too many bands now days cant seem to get out of that 4 notes pe beat zone..... good lesson!!!

[filthylittleboy]

okay, so the best part about your lesson was the 3 and five sylable words. That helped me A TON.

i guess when you post tabs they dont always show up as you want them to. the numbers about the measure are confusing... but thanks alot for the break down of the theory!

[AngryGoldfish]

replica_ wrote:

never looked at it like that but well explained.....meshuggah most of the time play ijn 4/4 but the guitar plays like for instance 5/4 but then at the 4th bar theyd take a note or 2 away from the end of the last bar basically so it fits intot he 4/4 beat. perhaps putting in something that explains that logical in the next lesson...

too many bands now days cant seem to get out of that 4 notes pe beat zone..... good lesson!!!

So what your saying is, instead of playing 4/4 then another bar of 4/4(which would equal to the more musical 8), like most bands do, they play 3/4 then 5/4. Which would sum up to 8 also?

[Laces Out Danny]

This article vaguely reminds me of singing while playing guitar

[johnny butt]

i've been doing research on this and i'm FASCINATED by it. could you go more into depth?

[Me2NiK]

This isn't polyrhythm, polyrhythm literally means multiple rhythms. It would be like having 3 into 3 and 2 into 3 (easily the most common polyrhythm) at the same time. While these are the fundamentals of polyrhythm, without two different rhythms at the same time it's simply not POLYrhythm.

[ProgIsGood]

polyrhythms-King Crimson-discipline
Irrational rhythms-Frank Zappa-all of Shut up and play yur guitar album

[ProgIsGood]

these are examples of each by the way

[a7xsoad]

broken circle wrote:

Caressing Death :
Oh and it's spelt Dream Theater.
If you're British it's not.

Oh dear. Dream Theater are American. So it's Dream Theater. If you're American or British. Typical British people (yes, I'm British too but not particularly proud of it)

[a7xsoad]

Me2NiK wrote:

This isn't polyrhythm, polyrhythm literally means multiple rhythms. It would be like having 3 into 3 and 2 into 3 (easily the most common polyrhythm) at the same time. While these are the fundamentals of polyrhythm, without two different rhythms at the same time it's simply not POLYrhythm.

And this is correct. You've got it all sussed, but It's not polyrhythm! It needs renaming. It just so happens that polyrhythm does occur in Dream Theater and one heck of a lot in Meshuggah (though not much in Tool I don't hear personally), although this isn't polyrhythm you've described!

[a7xsoad]

AngryGoldfish wrote:

replica_ wrote:

never looked at it like that but well explained.....meshuggah most of the time play ijn 4/4 but the guitar plays like for instance 5/4 but then at the 4th bar theyd take a note or 2 away from the end of the last bar basically so it fits intot he 4/4 beat. perhaps putting in something that explains that logical in the next lesson...

too many bands now days cant seem to get out of that 4 notes pe beat zone..... good lesson!!!

So what your saying is, instead of playing 4/4 then another bar of 4/4(which would equal to the more musical 8), like most bands do, they play 3/4 then 5/4. Which would sum up to 8 also?

No, the drummer for example plays 4/4, and other instruments play other time signatures, But it's often done cleverly - Often the pattern contains a number of bars which is the lowest common multiple (Or another common multiple) of the two time signatures used, so that they both 'come round' as such and meet back at square one. For example, with a polyrhythm of 4/4 and 6/4, It is likely that 24 bars will be used with 4/4, because the 6/4 pattern will then fit in as a whole number (18), and they will both finish together, so the pattern can start again if needs be!

[a7xsoad]

3 and 5 is just a way of counting 4/4 if thats how the pattern feels (e.g if number 1's are the root notes it may be counted this way by some people) - 1 2 3 1 2 3 4 5. The main bass riff from Schism by Tool is an example of a 6/4 pattern that is actually counted as 5/8 and 7/8. That isn't polyrhythm though.

[a7xsoad]

www.wikipedia.org/polyrhythm

[Nightfyre]

a7xsoad wrote:

www.wikipedia.org/polyrhythm

en.wikipedia .org, not www.
tabs are messed up...
Hey, you use the animal system too! I learned these from my quintet teacher last year:
each word is a beat, changing syllables is attacking/ changing notes (subdivision)
1 - bear
2 - tiger
3 - elephant
4 - crocodile
5 - hippotamus

catchy, and it works too! good article, even if it's technically irration/complex rhythm instead of polyrhythm.

[aetherspear]

Nightfyre wrote:
Hey, you use the animal system too! I learned these from my quintet teacher last year:
each word is a beat, changing syllables is attacking/ changing notes (subdivision)
1 - bear
2 - tiger
3 - elephant
4 - crocodile
5 - hippotamus

catchy, and it works too! good article, even if it's technically irration/complex rhythm instead of polyrhythm.

to bad crocodile is 3 syllables and 'hippotamus' is 4, but hippopotamus is 5.

[strat0blaster]

God damn it's so much easier to just PLAY it until you figure it out than it is to try and dissect stuff like this article. My advice to anyone interested in messing with polyrhythmic structures, which worked damned well for me, is to PLAY them along with artists like those listed above until they become comfortable. Once you've gotten the hang of all the subdividing in different signatures, THEN go read this confusing shit. Otherwise it just takes twice as long for some people. Learn to DO it first, then learn the specifics of naming and what it's called in theory.

[Acousticrock87]

Polyrhythm is just playing one time signature over another. For example, playing a 5/4 beat over a 3/4 beat. You would either need two instruments, or two hands working separately on one (e.g. drums).

Example:

5=notes in the 5/4 rhythm
3=notes in the 3/4 rhythm
b=notes in both

5--5--5--5--5--
3----3----3----

Combined, it would look something like:
b--5-35--53-5--
But it would have to be separated to be polyrhythmic.

[SlashYourFug]

broken circle wrote:

Caressing Death :
Oh and it's spelt Dream Theater.
If you're British it's not.

Language doesn't change proper nouns, such as the name of a band. Even in German it'd be Dream Theater.

[metalimaster]

yer, i have a video of steve vai playing this scale in what he claims to be 9/8 timing.... it is the sweetnes

plus i liek to think "hippopotamus" wen playing 5/4.... saying it allowed wen playing 4 ppl doesnt score u any points tho =p

[Dyers]

lolz0rz this must be a joke since its about learning how to read tabs....just learn to read music its not hard at all

[funkbass369]

this isn't about learning to read tabs dyers. you obviously have no clue what any of this means.

[jdhinds1234]

buy a Metronome. it will set you straight on meters like this. it will help subdivisions from quarter notes, eighth notes, triplets, sixteenths. your plum out of luck on fivelets and sextuplets and so on. school band and basic music theory help alot to.

[Leadhead3225]

i would be grate full if you put some songs that displayed the technique tought here

[flamencogod]

the placement is wrong on a lot of your tabs, and those are not polyrhythms.

[SL!!!]

SlashYourFug wrote:

broken circle wrote:

Caressing Death :
Oh and it's spelt Dream Theater.
If you're British it's not.

Language doesn't change proper nouns, such as the name of a band. Even in German it'd be Dream Theater.

Well...if we followed that rule then really even in Deutschland it would be Dream Theater. haha. But yeah.

[the_bi99man]

a7xsoad wrote:

Me2NiK wrote:

This isn't polyrhythm, polyrhythm literally means multiple rhythms. It would be like having 3 into 3 and 2 into 3 (easily the most common polyrhythm) at the same time. While these are the fundamentals of polyrhythm, without two different rhythms at the same time it's simply not POLYrhythm.
And this is correct. You've got it all sussed, but It's not polyrhythm! It needs renaming. It just so happens that polyrhythm does occur in Dream Theater and one heck of a lot in Meshuggah (though not much in Tool I don't hear personally), although this isn't polyrhythm you've described!

Tool doesn't really integrate the polyrhythms as consistently as these other bands, but they definitely have a good few polyrhythmic breakdowns. The one in Rosetta Stoned is freaking sweet.

[stathagranak]

I thought poly rythms were having two different time sigs at once for example 3/4 goes for 3 bars while 9/8 goes for two and they meet at the same beat.

[Jondy]

ok so polyrhythm is 2 or more rhythms at the same time, irrational rhythm is like, say, triplets, just an odd number of notes for that particular rhythm.

so what is it called when you constantly change rhythm like, say, schism?

[Super Llama]

iron_maiden93 wrote:

music-nerds

lets see... "ultimate-guitar"
last i checked a guitar was a musical instrument...

[LucasGtrGod]

Um those aren't polyrhythms that you described in your lesson, they are irregular note groupings.

A poly rhythm is basically where there two rhythms with different meters are played together,ie 3/4 + 4/4.

This grid will explain.
16th grid- xxxx|xxxx|xxxx|
3/4 - x |x |x |
4/4 - x x| x | x |

And at the start of the next bar for either signature they meet up.

That is the most simple polyrhythm because it is all subdivisible by 4 and you don't really get on completely "off the beat" notes.

[LucasGtrGod]

Srry html ****ed up, that grid was:

16th grid-|xxxx|xxxx|xxxx|
3/4-----|x---|x---|x---|
4/4-----|x- -x|--x-|-x--|

16th grid-|xxxxx|xxxxx|xxxxx|xxxxx|
4/4-----|x----|x----|x----|x ----|
5/4-----|x---x|---x-|--x--|-x---|

to get them to align with this style of grid you have to work out the total amount of sixteenth (or type of note is needed) and then work out how you need to divide your notes in order to get it to align with the base time signature(the one with the least beats)

16th grid-|xxxxx|xxxxx|xxxxx|xxxxx|x
4/4-----|x-----|x-----|x--- --|x-----|x
7/4-----|x---x--|-x---x-|--x---x|---x---|x

h ere the larger time signature is 7, to count the notes accurately in 4/4, you must think of the beats as being divided by 7 and then accent every 4th division of that seven to createb the polyrhythm.

And polyrhythms don't always have to line up on the next bar, and you can have more than one polyrhythm at a time, such as with african tribal music, and some south american music. THat's why you find that if you hear african tribal music it's rhtyhm tends to pulsate, that's the beats pulling apart, and then lining back up with each other at different times.

[LucasGtrGod]

um sorry for the third post but i did not realise with my above examples thati t would not line up...just count the dashes:
and try counting those sixteenth note divisions in your head and get your left hand to accent the main rhythm (the one with the least numbero of beats), while your right hand accents the other one.
There you go, you just played a polyrhythm...it is difficult at first.

[jem_legacy]

Thanks for the help on understanding polyrhythms. Now I understand what math metal is all about!

[notoriousnumber]

Awful article. Incoherent, poorly presented and explained, and utterly useless.

Next time, get it right.

[hippyguitardude]

this might be completely wrong but would a polyrythm be like the 4/4 drum beat of kashmir behind the 3/4 guitar part?

[Death22x]

ha nice but for triplets my band director say to use
"1 ti tah 2 ti tah"
works for me heh

[Led_Zeppelin992]

I always sort of knew what this was, just not what it was called. It's not that hard.

[whitebluesboy]

MATHCOREEEEE

[ZaDunne]

this really did nothing for me

[face_the_fear]

yea, I already knew a little bit about Polyrhythms so I thought this might help a bit more. You described it perfectly to start with then just went on about irregular beats after that. To be honest I got more information out of the comments.

[kaptkegan]

Thank you, I've been looking for a seven syllable phrase forever.

[Dimebag Dave]

Song examples please?

[iron_maiden93]

Super Llama wrote:

iron_maiden93 wrote:

music-nerds

lets see... "ultimate-guitar"
last i checked a guitar was a musical instrument...

last time i checked you're a douche...and yup you still are

[Rodders]

That was a terrible article. They're not even really talking about polyrhythms.

[Villevalo462]

aetherspear wrote:
to bad crocodile is 3 syllables and 'hippotamus' is 4, but hippopotamus is 5.

Did you graduate elementary school?? croc-o-di-le that sounds like 4 syllables to me... What a tool..

[sam i am]

Villevalo462 wrote:

aetherspear wrote:
to bad crocodile is 3 syllables and 'hippotamus' is 4, but hippopotamus is 5.
Did you graduate elementary school?? croc-o-di-le that sounds like 4 syllables to me... What a tool..

Croc-o-dile? you don't exactly say "croc-o-die-yul"...

[Gundam pilota09]

iron_maiden93 wrote:

Super Llama wrote:

iron_maiden93 wrote:

music-nerds

lets see... "ultimate-guitar"
last i checked a guitar was a musical instrument...

last time i checked you're a douche...and yup you still are

last i checked you named yourself for an overrated band ignorantly and would therefor presumably be ignorant in other fields such as music and social situations you need to learn something about music at the level of a first grade elementary school course then you'll be allowed back on this site. if you wish to chalenge my decision you must play the C#lydian mode and write it out on the musical staff with key signature. =)

[Gundam pilota09]

oh and write it in concert pitch and transposed pitch

[howfreeisthis]

you are a c for spelling theatre

[korn_dawg]

SL!!! wrote:

SlashYourFug wrote:
Language doesn't change proper nouns, such as the name of a band. Even in German it'd be Dream Theater.
Well...if we followed that rule then really even in Deutschland it would be Dream Theater. haha. But yeah.

Yes, that is how the rules of language function. It's just that most peoples like to put their culture's "spin" on proper nouns. Unless you disregard the rules of language, it should be "Dream Theater" all around the Earth

[joshjhasarrived]

Caressing Death wrote:

I haven't yet looked at this but I'm glad there's something being done on polyrhythms.
Oh and it's spelt Dream Theater.

ahahaha
They get pissed off when people spell it "Theatre".

[ShredderOmega]

Ok a7xsoad is the furst person to explain this in a way I understand;

No, the drummer for example plays 4/4, and other instruments play other time signatures, But it's often done cleverly - Often the pattern contains a number of bars which is the lowest common multiple (Or another common multiple) of the two time signatures used, so that they both 'come round' as such and meet back at square one. For example, with a polyrhythm of 4/4 and 6/4, It is likely that 24 bars will be used with 4/4, because the 6/4 pattern will then fit in as a whole number (18), and they will both finish together, so the pattern can start again if needs be!

Which isn't all that difficult... my band dose this naturaly :S

[mutilatedzombie]

these are just subdivisions, not polyrhythms.

[evan.kotara]

Okay, so i'll go ahead and explain this.

As a drummer first, guitarist second, i have to say - Polyrhythms are groupings of notes at different speeds played over one another. It doesn't matter if it's between instruments or hands, but its alot more impressive when one person does it.

Tool, or more just Danny Carey does it more than most drummers, a classic example being the vocal/drum break towards the end of Eulogy (#2 on Ænima). He repeats a three 16th note pattern on the high hat over a 4/4 drum beat, which is not only confusing to listen to, but a challenge for any drummer I've met. Seriously, it takes practice.

Dream Theater has a few passages, but none as profound as some of Liquid Tension Experiment (too many to name). Portnoy's inst. video - Liquid Drum Theater has plenty of great examples if you're looking to expand your drumming, or if you're just wondering how they did it.

For guitar, Polyrhythms don't offer as much musically, but skillfully used in the orchestration, they at the least give the listener that blank look of 'wait. what just happened?'

when playing polyrhythms, imagine how the notes will line up (hearing it helps)
one of the most common, or easiest, is quarter triplets over eighth notes.

which looks something like this:

RH|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x- x-x-x-x-x-x-|x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
LH|x--x--x--x--x--x|--x--x-- x--x--x-|-x--x--x--x--x--|x--x--x--x--x--x|--x--x--x--x--x-|
\- 3 -/ \- 3 -/ \- 3 -/ \- 3 -/ \- 3 -/ \- 3 -/ \- 3 -/ \- 3 -/ \- 3 -/

It may look like alot, but I'll explain it, just forget the tabs for a second.
Start by just tapping eighth notes with your right hand.
Next, tap your left hand on every third note, but make sure the right hand doesnt change.
If you write it as a single rhythm, you can count it as:

1 +a2 + 3e+
|-x-xxx-x-xxx-

Get the feel for this first, then you can put time to it.
If you want to look at it different, it's just

1 + 2
RH|x-x-x-
LH|x--x--
\- 3 -
tri pu

but only played over the bar. Waay over the bar. As in, it takes 5 measures of 4/4 to loop back over to the downbeat.


As for rocket_manj's guide, tips for subdivisions can be useful, but for most guitarists, triplets will serve just fine. as for words, here's what ive heard:

triplets:
tri - pu - let
one - la - le, two - la - le, etc

five:
op - por - tu - ni - ty
or in a phrase like

/-- 5 --\
-x-x-x-x-x-x

op - por - tu - ni - ty - knocks

or, depending on who you're with...
ho - mo - se - xu - al

for playing these, all i can say is practice. get the feel for how many notes go in what space, then just knock it out. if nothing else, use software like Guitar Pro hear what it'll sound like..

any questions or anything, pm me, i'm always open

[Fambi]

This was not about polyrhythms, rather about irregular rhythm patterns. Misleading as hell article 0/5

[CaRveItiNbass]

this is cool. i wish people would post more theory related stuff. i take a class for it in high school, and its just gotten past triads, and getting a bit difficult.

[codyshredfoo]

great article man, i didnt know that was what polyrythms were, but it makes sense, for the homeboy that commented before me, you just play 3, 5, or 7, or any other number of notes that isnt 1 2 4 8 16 32 64 ect. in one beat

[God_Knows]

SL!!! wrote:

Mmmmm....polyrhythm is when you have one rhythm, say a beat on one and two, and then another that has a different pattern, like a beat on 2 and 4 and they are played at the same time. So if i understand right he means that you would be playing these triplets, quintuplets, and septuplets over a different rhythm, like a guitar playing just eight notes..because otherwise he's just describing irregular note duration, ie 3 eighth notes in the length of one quarter note, five sixteenths in the length of one quarter note, or 7 sixteenths in the length of one a quarter, or sometimes in the length of 8 sixteenths, which is why the higher tuplets are often written as a ratio, like 5:4

So..this article is ambiguous and doesn't explain things all that well, but gets the gist of it across, i'll give it a 3 out of 5.

Agreed, that's exactly what i think