1/4 Note Triplets

[chop_1992]

Originally Posted by bejoyous

Here's a good way to get a tactile feel for the quarter-note triplet:

1. Listen to I Want to Live in America from West Side Story.
2. say that phrase several time.
3. On the words I, Live, the letters m, i and c of America, pat your thigh; on words and letters Want To, to A, er and a of America ( ie Pat clap clap, Pat clap clap, Pat clap, Pat clap, Pat clap.
4. Just do the Pats at several tempos. In your mind you can think whatever works for you (123,123, 12, 12, 12; tri-pe-let, tri-pe-let, du-ple, du-ple, du-ple, etc.)

I think this is a very clever description of how to think of quarter-note triplets . . . well done, bejoyous!

[TroyK]

I seem to have it in my ears and fingers now. The reason that I was comfortable with the 1/8 note triplet and not the 1/4 note, is I felt and understood the 1/8 note triplet based on it's relationship to the swing 8th. I had no such reference for a 1/4 triplet. Like I said in my original post, I understood what I was, but I was trying to subdivide to it and it was getting muddled. For years people have been said "it's just 3 over two" and my classical teacher this week said "oh sure I can explain that, it's just 3 over 2". Accurate and reasonable as an answer, but it wasn't going to bring it together for me.

So, thinking of it as a 1/2 time 1/8 note triplet helped. The West Side Story reference helped a lot. All of the different ways of looking at it that you guys offered helped, but then I started flipping through lead sheets looking for this pattern in a melody and then listened to a bunch of recordings of those tunes and clapped and or played them and suddenly it was there for me. Same way ultimately that I learn everything that sticks.

Jobim used this device in his composing a lot and I'm finding it recurring in Billy Strayhorn tunes too. Now that I get it, I like it.

Of course, I've been singing or playing these figures for years, but I'm working on my reading this was a case where the notation shut me down, more so that the musical reference of it.

I'm functionally good now. Thanks again for everyone's help.

[chop_1992]

Now you could try starting the quarter-note triplet on the second eighth-note:

Eighth-note triplets:

1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3
Quarter-note triplets starting on 1
1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3

Quarter-note triplets starting a triplet eighth-note later:
1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3 1 2 3
(Tip: Rest on the first eighth-note.)

It is also a common device that players use i.e. that arrangers use a lot. Once you have the feeling of the quarter-note triplet, it's easy to shift it over an eighth.