How to Accent 8th Note Triplets

[JonnyPac]

Hey there all y'all.

Triplets are obviously a must in a jazzer's rhythmic vocabulary, but there is a catch- ACCENTS!

So many of us tend to play repeated 8th note triplet figures as: ONE two three Two two threeThree two three Four two three | One
and so on.

It ends up sounding natural, yes, but also a bit "bipity bopity boo" or "Follow the Yellow-brick Road"... or should I say "corny" compared to the other syncopated rhythms commonly found in jazz.

Here's how to get out of the rut (assuming you are in it)... Play them as 1 2 3 4 5 6 (when they are in sets of two or more like above). Then accent them in different basic groupings such as: 1 2 3 4 5 6, and/or 1 2 3 4 5 6. These imply a 6/8 kind of feel and a hidden slower triplet under the pulse. Mix it up and create sounding melodic lines! (They will feel very awkward against a 4/4 metronome click at first; be sure to work them out solid.)

Anyhoo- I am having a blast adding these (and more) into my playing and I thought I'd share.

PS They are also the "Goldilocks" rhythm between too slow 8ths and too fast 16ths and some tempos. Breaking them up into 6 with varied accents make them a more legit rhythmic currency in jazz, IMHO.

[JakeAcci]

1 2 3 4 5 6

1 2 3 4 5 6

1 2 3 4 5 6

1 2 3 4 5 6

1 2 3 4 5 6

1 2 3 4 5 6

1 2 3 4 5 6

1 2 3 4 5 6

1 2 3 4 5 6 | 1 2 3 4 5 6

1 2 3 4 5 6 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 | 1 2 3 4 5 6 | 1 2 3 4 5 6

All depends on the phrase

Or..you could not accent any at all...

[JonnyPac]

Nice, Jake.

And there can be ties!!

[JakeAcci]

I think the key is having a groove in your head you want to fulfill. I agree practicing your original suggestion is good, especially 2/4/6. It's great to experiment with all possibilities, then when it comes time to play, you're just playing, and nothing wrong with just being straight.

All of this is also great to do with quarter note triplets...or half note triplets, yikes. Good preparation for playing with people who like to mess with this kind of stuff...

[JonnyPac]

8th notes: 1 2 3 4 5 6 ...now omit back beats: 1 (2) 3 (4) 5 (6) = quarter note triplet.

Half note triplets can be found the same way, but yikes is right!

Monk was known for playing inverse quartet note triplets (1) 2 (3) 4 (5) 6 ... scary!!

[TrakaVobla]

Ta Ki Te, Ta Ki Te, Ta Ki Te, Ta Ki Te

[brwnhornet59]

Great ideas guys. Thanx for posting this. I will mess around with them the next few days and see where it leads me.

[JonnyPac]

Originally Posted by Srinjay

(123)(4 12)(34 1)(234) (123)4 etc.

It's a total "bebop" must-have feel in 8th notes too. Dotted quarter accents in 8th note runs. They can begin the cycle anywhere and adding groupins of 2 to fill in any gaps, etc. Very cool stuff indeed.

[JonnyPac]

Charlie Parker... almost all of it!

[JonnyPac]

Bert Ligon really covers this and has extensive excerpts in Jazz Theory Resources vol I. Highly recommended.

[matt.guitarteacher]

Originally Posted by Srinjay

you might try this

(123)(4 12)(34 1)(234) (123)4 etc.

I use a very similar one to teach my (non-jazz) students what syncopation is all about in rhythm playing.
(123)(4 12)(34 1)(234) (12)(34)

The organ part from "Summer of '69" has this rhythm and we use that to solidify this groove.

Dsus2 D Dsus D Dsus2 D
Asus2 A Asus A Asus2 A

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

When I think of what I stick, melodically, into triplets, I realize I'm very limited:

1. an arpeggio
2. an upper or lower neighbor, for example B C B or C B C
3. repeated note (C C C)
4. chromatic run

That's probably 90%+ of my triplets. Then I look at some of Bach's triplet work in his preludes, for example. God damn!

[princeplanet]

Originally Posted by BigDaddyLoveHandles

When I think of what I stick, melodically, into triplets, I realize I'm very limited:

1. an arpeggio
2. an upper or lower neighbor, for example B C B or C B C
3. repeated note (C C C)
4. chromatic run

That's probably 90%+ of my triplets. Then I look at some of Bach's triplet work in his preludes, for example. God damn!

Same, sounds like we could do with a few ideas with how to incorporate embellishing chord tones with triplets in more interesting ways. Any ideas out there?

[JakeAcci]

Originally Posted by princeplanet

Same, sounds like we could do with a few ideas with how to incorporate embellishing chord tones with triplets in more interesting ways. Any ideas out there?

An exercise I've done a bit of it is slowly going through tunes playing only consistent 8th note triplets or quarter note triplets. Also illuminating to do with quintuplets!

You have to start slow to still have control over targeting the intended beats...however, simply playing familiar 8th note lines but rhythmically placed as 8th note triplets can be an interesting effect.

I used to practice this at extremely slow tempos, found it very helpful. Hmm, just picked up my guitar and gave it a shot, seems like I could use a refresher course

[JakeAcci]

Originally Posted by JonnyPac

8th notes: 1 2 3 4 5 6 ...now omit back beats: 1 (2) 3 (4) 5 (6) = quarter note triplet.

Half note triplets can be found the same way, but yikes is right!

Monk was known for playing inverse quartet note triplets (1) 2 (3) 4 (5) 6 ... scary!!

Yeah I mean the longer the phrase the more disconnected it can sound, which can be really awesome, especially if the band can lock in with it. For example, only playing every other quarter note triplet. If the smaller subdivisions are internalized, it actually can get kind of easy. I think of it like a freight train is coming around and a person gets on every fourth cart, that kind of thing.

This stuff also gets kind of wild in 3/4 or odd meters. For example (using T L for "trip-let"

half note triplets themselves in 3/4 kind of look like this:

1 T L 2 T L 3 T L | 1 T L 2 TL 3 T L | etc, takes a while to wrap around


displacing them:
1 T L 2 T L 3 TL | 1 T L 2 TL 3 T L | etc

[princeplanet]

Originally Posted by JakeAcci

An exercise I've done a bit of it is slowly going through tunes playing only consistent 8th note triplets or quarter note triplets. Also illuminating to do with quintuplets!

You have to start slow to still have control over targeting the intended beats...however, simply playing familiar 8th note lines but rhythmically placed as 8th note triplets can be an interesting effect.

I used to practice this at extremely slow tempos, found it very helpful. Hmm, just picked up my guitar and gave it a shot, seems like I could use a refresher course

Do you have any specific ex's for using triplets with enclosures or targeting?

[JakeAcci]

I suppose you could compose a guide tone line that is only half notes, then try to either improvise or compose all-triplet runs that satisfy that guide tone line using step wise approaches to the guide tones when they arrive.

Similarly I guess you could also make a triplet sequence that hits chord tones on strong beats and run it through all the chords, then try it with a different sequence, kind of like Trane's 1235...but with 6 notes, the 6th being an approach to the first of the next chord's sequence. Here's a "hip" one I like - 1 up to 5 down to 2 up to 3 up to 6 up to 7, but that doesn't approach chord tones of the next chord n

You could also look at a relatively unsyncopated 8th note line from the classic vocabulary, strip it for it's guide tone line, then rewrite it with a similar contour as the original but with triplets instead of 8th notes. Hmm I just took a few minutes and tried some of that, seems useful, I could share the lines I came up with

One thing I used to do when I was trying to get better at 3/4 is to take short Bird phrases and chop off the ends or beginnings so I could get them to fit and swing in a measure or two of 3/4. Given that in that scenario we're talking about making things that fit in groups of 3/6/12, I'd imagine a similar process could be applied to triplets.

It seems like there is a lot you could do...like go through changes with all triplets but hit the third of every change from a half step above...or below...same with seventh, ifth, ninth, etc, or do some sequence or patterns of chord tones (target third then target seventh, repeat, that kind of thing)

But I like the syncopation of still phrasing things as groups of 4 when you are playing triplets...that way I can play a lot of my familiar vocabulary and it sounds hip and displaced, and all the technique is identical.