 Hi everyone, this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music. Hope you're doing well. In this lesson, I just wanted to introduce you to the world of triplets in a rather informal way. Now, on our YouTube channel, we've done a lot of triplet lessons with piano exercises, fillers. We've even done some bass lessons. You can check them out. But in this lesson, is just to show you how you can learn and how you can practice triplets in a very free, organic way. And if you do it in these in these styles, which I'm going to teach you today in this lesson, you're going to be able to immediately make music, immediately compose music and improvise music. Okay, first of all, like an overview of triplets, you'll find them a lot in these epic movie themes, or pretty much any movie theme. Like if you want to make like, just to simulate a drum environment, you could do things like, you know. So triplet basically divides the beat into three units. That's that's all it's doing. It's dividing the pulse or your head movement or how you react to the song is in threes. It's in groups of three. So there are many kinds of triplets, which we are going to see in this in this lesson. So do stay tuned. So I'd like to first talk about where we find triplets in music. I have mentioned this epic movie themes, you know, if you want to build, I'll show you a few more places. And before we get cracking, it'll be awesome. If you could hit that subscribe button and hit the bell icon for regular notifications, we do a lot of videos in a week and riffs and interviews and a few more things which are coming your way. So it'll be great to hit subscribe, hit the bell for notifications and do consider supporting us on Patreon where you'll get all my handwritten notes, MIDI files, notation and a lot more. Let's get started with the lesson. So if you take like standard movie themes, you can basically divide the beat by three. Let's say you take a D divide that by three. Of course, playing just a single D is rather annoying. So you can go even some ambient dreamy stuff. One, two, three, one, two, three, one. You'll find triplets a lot in these movie theme scenarios. You'll find triplets also in a lot of Eastern music and Indian music, especially. So if you take, let's say this groove. It gives you a very Eastern and an Indian vibe. And incidentally, this is also on triplets one, two, three, one, two, three, triple it, triple it. Anyway, yeah, you'll also find triplets in traditional Waltz songs, like for example, there. That's an any Waltz song. One, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, three, one, two, one, two, three, one. You'll find triplets used a lot in these ballad songs. The genre ballads generally tends to be on three or even six, eight songs. Like for example, stuff like that. Three, one, two, three, two, three, one, two, three. So it's inherently part of Waltz music and six, eight feel music. Where else do you find triplets? I think at the end of sections of songs. So let's say you're dividing the beat by two, by two units, and you're playing quavers. So if you do something like and two and one and two and you can now sneak in a triplet at the end of this phrase, at the end of the section. So you're kind of retaining the tempo, you're retaining the vibe of the song. But at the end, you're adding what I call as a filler or a role, exactly what drummers do, isn't it? At the end of a groove. So that was a triplet. One, two, three. And in India, we use a conical to count these things a lot. We can say things like, which feels really natural on the body. So I would suggest checking out some of our other YouTube videos where we talk about dividing the beat. And I talk a lot about conical and how you can voice it out better. Yes, you can also say one and a two and a three and a four and a that can help you could even say, and so on and so forth. Triplets, you'll also find them a lot in rap melodies, rap, vocal tunes. A lot of the phrases are in triplets. You'll also find them a lot in heavy metal music, like you take riffs like you'll find it a lot in heavy metal metal stuff like. Now, triplets are not to be confused with a few other things which you may get confused with thresio, which is a salsa or Latin rhythmic thing. You don't want to confuse it with dotted vibes. You don't want to confuse it with dotted notes. So there's another video in the description waiting for you where I explore what's the difference between triplet salsa, thresio and also a dotted flavor and accents and all these other things which some of us musicians, sometimes by mistake, we call it triplets. So let's get cracking with the use cases now of triplets which is pretty much what I had for you. So I've presented five use cases. Let's get cracking. The first one is what I call as rhythmic devices. So what you do is you notate all the possible ways in which you can use a triplet grouping in a beat of music. So you can basically do all the three triplets in one beat or you could do the triplet only at the one and not do it at the two and the three. This is just a crotchet, isn't it? Or another interesting use of a triplet is this. Yes, you guessed it. I'm not playing anything. A rest could also be visualized as a triplet. So what do we have? You can make some combos, rest, rest. So those are what I call as trivial triplet combos or devices. You could also do swing rhythms. Swing rhythm is anyways sort of felt as a triplet with the middle one not played. So that's a swing feel. You count it as one triplet, two, three. Don't play the middle one. A good way to feel it are things like Rodeau's blues where you do like a swing and then you end with a triplet. So okay, what about the other triplet rhythmic devices? You can play the first two and then not play at the third one. You could do then what can you do? You can not play the one and then play the two and three. There we go. Then what else? You can not play the one, not play the three and play at the two. There we go. Or you can not play the one and the two and play only at the three. Very bouncy. So I have notated a few triplet patterns using rhythmic devices. I suggest you check it out. We've put it out on the screen, but it'll be awesome if you can consider getting a copy on Patreon. There's an entire booklet waiting for you. So you can go there and maybe use that as a supplementary resource for the lesson. So let me just play you some of those combos which I've composed. So the first one is if you see the notation and a good way to clap it or to practice it would be snap. One, two, three, four, on going. Now you can play whatever on earth you want along those hit phrases, along those hit points. You can play a melody or you can do chords. Okay, what else do I have for you? The next one. Third one. So it's basically swing and then triplet. Very drum-like. And then I've kind of expanded on that by doing. And one more rhythm which is sitting there is. Those are just some combos I put out. Now you could make your own combos. You could make your own patterns as well. So let's now move on to the other approach I have for you to practice triplets. I call this as tuplets or polyrhythms if you will. So what you could do to start off is begin with an eighth note triplet. Maybe you take a D minor chord and arpeggiate it as one, one. Now what you want to do is put a rest every alternate sub beat. So one and a two and a three and a four and a one and a two and a three and a four and a two and a triplet would sound faster. It's also called as a polyrhythm or a three over two polyrhythm. And a cool thing on the piano is you can play one pattern here and you can play another pattern here. So it's a very powerful instrument as we all know. Now along with quarter note triplets you also have half note triplets. So you can make the triplet even more slower. So make it half note now which is really slow. Very groovy. That's a nice way to practice triplets. Like start with eighth note triplets which is then knock off some beats making it quarter note triplets then knock off even more beats making it Okay. So let's now move on to the next style of using triplets. You can use it within six eight time signature using nine eight time signature using 12 eight or maybe even 15 eight. So what do what do we mean by these time signatures? All of these have a dominant beat every one out of three. So six eight will be one two three one two three one two three four five six one. You see the main clap is happening at the one and the four. So that means it's packaged in threes or triplets one two three two one two one. So you can even count it as one two. You could even feel it as a two four one two or one two three four five six one two three four. Similarly you have nine eight which you can feel as three four one two three one two three one two three or one two three four five six seven eight nine. Then you do 12 eight very commonly used or four four with packages of triplets and one two three two three four two three one could write. So you could visualize triplets like that six eight nine eight 12 eight and you know weave your music around those hit points right. So we also call this as you know simple and compound time where you either package it as a bigger number nine or six or 12 or you package it as a smaller number but you think in terms of triplets. So we've done a lot of videos on triplets and poly rhythms and all these things. We've put a playlist also with all our rhythm videos so do check it out. Also on Nathanielschool.com under the free tutorial section you can filter those lessons under topics which interest you. In this case maybe rhythm or triplets and stuff like that. Let's move on right. So using triplets in this methodology may not be officially triplets but it's basically trying to use sets of three instead of dividing the beat by three. So to give you an example so if I take this thing F and play like that now I'm playing quavers in my right hand one and two and but what if I not make it feel like traditional quavers. What if I make it feel like a grouping of triplets divide by two sets of three. So it's kind of still four four one two three four. Okay now you could also do like sets of three to eventually resolve in a bar like you can do do the maths. So if you want to do 16 16th notes you can do what let's think of an example three plus three plus three plus three plus four equals 16 isn't it. So you could do things like so these are not triplets these are just sets of three. So I would probably call them as fake triplets if you want to give it a term and you can come up with well we can't come up with that that was already made by Brian Adams but you get a lot of songs which have that okay. So that was about the accented vibe moving on. So we have general swing music. Generally if you think about it swing music is used a lot in blues and jazz. So you have the triplet vibe in all those genres. So if you take let's say let's try and convert something to swing. That's what I propose to tell you. So if you take let's say this song I think you know this. Now if you want to bring in some swing you can bring in that vibe or you can imbibe the swing within the tune itself. You can bring in the triplets within the song itself you know you may not want to do that but you get the idea. So you can use swing like give any song a bluesy or a swing vibe using the swing triplet feel okay and I have one more final conclusion or a bonus point if you will wherein what if you could just add triplets to anything literally anything any song under the sun it's possible. All you have to do is first play the song. Let's take our favorite song. Now when you're playing this try to always feel the sub beats or feel the divisions of the beats not in that's the semi quaver thing where you're dividing by four or maybe don't feel the tanga tanga tanga tanga that's quaver maybe you want to feel triplets which is three. Of course you're playing the same tune but in your mind you're feeling triplets so when you feel that you can bring it out on the piano or any instrument really you see the point I hope I'm trying to convey you can go on and on with this so try to add the triplet feel to your favorite songs and let me know in the comments how you found it you can even send us recordings you can follow our Instagram channel and probably drop us a note if you record any of this stuff and you're you know proud to share it or you just want our feedback on whatever you've done right guys so in this particular lesson we've talked about triplets we've talked about six ways how you can practice or use them in your music or six approaches then we've in the beginning we also just looked at where we can find triplets in conventional music or in music in general okay so hope you found the lesson useful again do consider getting yourself a copy of the handwritten notes on patreon and that will also have notes of our previous lessons and our future lessons so that'll be a great learning resource and again this is Jason Zach from Nathaniel School of Music don't forget to hit that like give the video a share leave us a comment and subscribe if you haven't already and try to subscribe if possible like right now would be a great time not any other time apart from right now anyway thanks a ton guys cheers catch you in the next one