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HomeMusic Theory Rhythm: Rhythm Triplet Pattern

"Rhythm Triplet Pattern"
Three Part Beats

Here we will move into dividing beats into three parts. We will call it a triplet rhythm pattern. We work with

  • Reviewing 3/4 time signature

  • Add new terms for counting the rhythm triplet pattern. 

  • Easily seeing the differnt applicaitons of using the triplet pattern.

So what happens when we use eighth notes on a quarter beat pattern but have 3 notes instead of two? Another great question. Let's investigate this 3 part beat.

Review 3/4 Time Signature

Review the straight beats on the 3/4 time signature.

count-rhythm-3-4

This is easily counted as 1 2 3, 1 2 3. But What if we wanted to divide the beats into 3 sub-parts as follows:

count-rhythm-3-4-triplet1

Once again we took the beat and made it three parts.

How would you know that three 8th notes would be counted this way?  There are a couple of ways that this will show up.

Take a look:
One common way is to express 3 beamed single-eighth-note with a 3 and bracket across the top indicating a triplet, like this.  image-files/single-eighth-note-triplet  Or  image-files/single-qtr-note-triplet  for quarter notes.

They can be written with 3 beamed 8th notes like this

count-rhythm-4-4-triplets

Here is an example of the  x head:    single-eighth-xhead-triplet   or single-eighth-xhead-triplet

Explore further the counting with other notes.  Once again it is very important to count all three pieces of the beat to keep the rhythm smooth and consistent.
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