There are numerous ways you can divide a beat. The most common way to divide them would be halving a beat. Therefore, in a simple time signature of 4/4, you can divide a whole note into two half notes, and a half note into two quarter notes and a quarter note into two eighth notes and so on. But what if we want to divide a beat an odd number of times, for instance into three or sixths or sevenths. That is where the knowledge of Tuplets helps us.
To become a good musician you need to cultivate the habit of reading and writing irregular rhythms such as triplets or sextuplets. Don’t worry they’re not too difficult but having the knowledge surely helps us. So let’s start understanding what the heck triplets actually are.
Dividing a Quarter by three
Let’s assume that a Quarter note duration is 100 seconds. Therefore, if we halve it then two eighth notes will be born, both of them lasting for 50s.
Similarly, if we divide the Quarter Note by 3 we get three notes that last for 33s. Those notes are what we call Eighth-Note triplets.
Representing a Triplet
We write a triplet by adding a number three on top of the beam connecting three eighth notes.
Below figures show other ways of writing triplets
Counting a Triplet
Let’s take an example of a bar of 4/4 with 2 Eighth Notes on every beat.
The simplest way to count them is – 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &, with the numbers falling on the downbeats
And the “&”s falling on the beats between the downbeats.
Now let’s say that we divide the first beat into a triplet.
The way to count this bar will be – 1-Trip-Let 2 & 3 & 4 &, with the numbers again falling on the downbeat
And the “&”s falling on the upbeats, the Trip and let syllable will be used for the 2 Eighth-Note Triplets in between the 1st and 2nd downbeat.
Below is the audio of a drum playing the above example.
The Family of Triplets
Now that you have an understanding of a triplet and how to count them, let’s look at the family tree for the
Do practice them out loud every day, so you can internalize how it feels.
Cheers,
SonorousMoose
