Hi everyone, welcome back to another free drum lesson at Hackney Wick Drum Studio. I hope you've been enjoying this series of introductory ' How to play the drums' lessons, they've proved to be a great place to start for both children and beginners alike.
Following on from last weeks lesson covering Eighth Notes, it's now time to have a look at the eighth note triplet. This usually proves to be the most challenging one when just starting out, but as always, if you can count it, then you can play it.
The first thing to understand is that we're now fitting in three notes per beat, as the word 'Triplet' would suggest.
To count this exercise out loud we would say 1-trip-let, 2-trip-let, 3-trip-let, 4-trip-let, (or as shown on the notation below, 1&a 2&a 3&a 4&a) and as always, the number of the count falls on top of the click. The most important thing to address here is making sure that your notes are evenly spaced.
I recommend first starting this drum lesson on a practice pad, before moving onto your snare drum.
Have a look at the exercise below. As always, start this drum lesson at 60 BPM before moving to higher tempos when you're comfortable.
Another important thing to note is the sticking. On the first line we have alternate sticking. Pay particular attention to this because on beats 2 and 4, you will naturally find yourself leading with the left hand which can be tricky at first.
On the second line of sticking, we are playing a double stroke. This is a little harder to master, mainly down to the fact that you'll be playing groups of 2 i.e RR, but against the feel of the triplet. It's more important than ever with this exercise to count it out loud as you're playing it.
So for some example videos. The first one is me playing the above exercise at 60 BPM. The first two bars in the video are me playing alternate sticking, and the second two bars are me playing the double stroke.
The next video is the same exercise again, but this time at 90 BPM
There we go, a brief introduction to the eighth note triplet. Like I said above, this can be tricky to begin with, but if you persevere, it will open up a whole new bunch of possibilities for you.
As always, please feel free to leave any questions or comments below. I'm very happy to help.
And remember - I offer 1-2-1 drum lessons from my drum studio here in Hackney Wick. so if you're looking for drum lessons in London, it couldn't be easier to book. Just click for your FREE TASTER SESSION, or check out the website for all the other info.
Thanks so much for taking a look at this, I hope its been helpful. In my next drum blog we'll be covering the very versatile sixteenth note, so check that out in a few days.
Happy drumming,
Jack