Timing And Duration Of Quarter Note Triplets 3

This Vid. is about how to time or count Quarter-Note Triplets (or "A triplet (made) of quarter-notes.").

Notice that the first note of each triplet falls exactly on the beat. However, the duration of each note in the triplet is slightly less than the standard duration of that note.


Red lines indicate the timing/duration comparrison.

THERES PROBABLY SOME ERRORS (or even disagreements about effective ways of how to "count" the beats) to this analysis. I thought I share this with the music comunity since counting things like this seem awkward to alot. The trick is to get and feel the nice rhythm to it. Try imagining it in your head or playing some notes. For the Quarter-Note triplets, you can even image the timing of each beat as three beats in 3/8, or two beats in 6/8 timing.

The duration of each quater note is equivalent to the duration of two eigth notes, and the triplet shown in the upper staff is basically three eigth notes squeezed into the timing of one quarter note or two eigth notes.

The duration of each half note is equivalent to the duration of two quarter notes. The triplet in the lower staff (what this vid is about) is basically three quarter notes squeezed into the timing of one half note or two quarter notes.

The common "waltz" temp of 3/4 (3 beats per measure, and they are quarter notes as indicated by the 4) has a feel similar to triplets, but the "waltz" is usually slower.

If you were to think of the top staf as two groups of 6/8 time, the notes of the quarter-note triplets would come on the odd (1, 3, and 5) counts (from 1 to 6).

Sometimes musicians like to start a triplet on any one its three notes, perhaps silencing the other notes. This is sometimes heard in some odd rhythm pattern, even if just temporary, of like the Rush or Beatles playing guitar chords.

Category:

Howto & Style

Tags:

• timing
• and
• duration
• of
• quarter
• note
• triplets
• music
• theory
• education
• organ
• guitar
• drums
• beats

[cyberflea07]

be careful with numbers with two syllables :seven eleven 'couse you might accidentally give two beats instead of one....

[Jon70]

@cyberflea07 good idea, thats why i recomend never counting that high to begin with, just count up to 4 or 6 max, then repeat another similar count if necessisary.

[Jon70]

Some times counting can get or seem to be so "complicated" that other ways must be utilized. For example this is a bit complicated:

1 ee an da

2 ee and da 

3 ee and da

4 ee and da

Thats alot to be going through your head especially when performing. A way to remidy this is to use usually break each measure up into two sets that count up to four, that is, each eigth note will have a count of 1 of that four.

Then you can count sixteenth notes by using an "an" in your mind.

[Jon70]

for 16th notes:

1 and 2 and

3 and 4 and

1 and 2 and

3 and 4 and

Note then the measure is two sets of counting up to 4 basically.

[Jon70]

For stuff like 6/8 and 12/8 timing, you can still use the ideas:

1  2 3

4 5 6

can be converted in your mind to:

1 and 2

3 and 4

[Jon70]

@Jon70 Just like with 4/4 being divided into two sets you would not want to count this in 12/8 timing

1 2 3

4 5 6

7 8 9

10 11 12

thats alot of counting, so its obvious to break it into two sets of:

1 2 3

4 5 6

1 2 3

4 5 6

[Dynamik5]

Yea, very good tip. Another idea is shortening the words themselves to one syllable. For me seven becomes "sev", eleven becomes "lev" twelve becomes "twel" since the vvveee adds more time to the pronunciation. I only count up to eight tho, which works for me ;). Cheers

[Sarandib22]

Not only is that insanely confusing, but it's not correct. (I teach piano - came across this looking for an example for my student who's on vacation.)

Use the word "tri-pi-let" the same as you would for 8th note triplets. But instead of timing it to fit in the duration of a quarter note (ex: "1, 2, tri-pi-let, 4"), say it so that it takes up 2 beats ("1, tri-pi-let, 4"), Takes some practice, but it's correct. If anything but the first note falls on the actual beat, it's not correct.

[viterchan]

@Jon70 can u shed also some light about the minim triplets ,please try to make it just like the way u did it from 8th note trplets to quarter and to minim.

[Christkeys09]

very very helpful thank you. 

[guyroeeandbuzi]

i'm looking for a vid that will explain me how to approach quintets (5 hits per quarter) it seems so unnetural