How to Play Guitar Triplets Video Lecture - The Ultimate Guitar Course

if you found this video after doing a
YouTube search for sexy triplets let me
welcome you to a surprise guitar lesson
but stick around for a while because I
think the triplets are the sexiest of
the subdivisions we're going to talk
about how you can incorporate them in
your guitar playing but before we do
this to get a better perspective on what
triplets are we are going to look at
them in the context of a drum kit and
percussion alright well here we are at
the drum kit now whenever you're
subdividing a beat basically if you have
like a metronome or a temple it's just
like 1 2 3 4 that's every single beat
right in a bar now we can start
subdividing these you start breaking
them up splitting them up so instead of
having 1 2 3 4 we have 1 M 2 M 3 M 4 M
all right we can also go one E and a two
E and four E there are the words
symmetrically breaking I just broke
those up in 2/4 right now a triplet is
kind of interesting we can do it a
couple different ways you can go move it
so again so 1 for 1 now if you notice
I'm going left hand right hand left
right right left right right there are a
lot of different ways you get you with
one hand and I'm dynam I'm dynamically
accenting the one on each of these right
now another way to do it that I think
drummers kind of like prefer and just my
own personal experience is to go back
and forth with your hands right
so in that case instead of going left
right right left right right you're
going a triplet triplet so you're always
going left and right you're never
switching you're just accenting
differently so the first time you'll
accent on left 1 2 3 right
and we're going to show how that kind of
thing can be applied to strumming any
kind of guitar and then using kind of
like these basic principles of rhythm in
a triplet way on a different instrument
so now that we kind of have a grasp on
what triplets are we're going to first
incorporate them into our strumming and
the way we're going to do it is we're
just going to mute the strings hold the
whole string set so it's not making any
noise and we're going to incorporate
what we just saw on the drum kit into
your picking or if you want to play with
your fingers or whatever how you do it
so now just like I'm a kit how we can do
triplets with alternate hands right kind
of like you can do the same thing but
think of is your hand like your left
hand your right hand as a Down stroke
and an upstroke so again like we saw
before we could do like a left right
right left right right thing by going
down up up down up up down up up down up
up right and if like that's our temple 1
2 3 4 1 triplet 2 triplet 3 triplet 4 /
another way to count trip was people do
it two different ways sometimes I'll say
the beat that they're on and the word
triplet is in two syllables other times
people will say triplet as three
syllables triplet triplet triplet
triplet I kind of go back and forth
there's really no wrong way to do it but
again so for just doing this muted core
thing right we do it a couple different
ways we've got the 1 triplet 2 triplet
down up down up down up up down up up
down now the thing is you could easily
just be playing in three-four timing
what we want to do is we want to throw
these triplets into a different kind of
set so if we go like 1 2 triplet 4 1 2
triplet 4 1 2 triple it for so kind of
by focusing in on that one beat adding a
triple day you'll get a better sense of
how you can seamlessly come in and out
of triples right now I think a more
useful way to strum triplets is to keep
a steady hand and kind of like on the
drum kit where we were dynamically
accenting the triplet so you're always
going left and right you're always going
up and down and this will make you a
really better a really good guitar strum
er right if you can strum triplets like
triple a triple triple it triple it and
that's where this kind of dead end trick
helps right so what I'm doing is I'm
accenting the first note of a triplet so
accent
hang a little bit harder 1 2 3 1 2 3
so you'll notice every time I go through
a triplet the accent is going to be on a
different stroke I'll start with a bound
stroke then I'll have two softer up and
downs then the next accented stroke will
be up so I'm going down up down up down
up down up down up down
triple it triple it one triplet two
triplet three triplet right so now if we
incorporate an open chord like I'm just
going to take I'm going to take a minor
chord right and you can do the same
thing so
once you kind of get that that rhythm
engrained you'll be able to do a lot of
really cool stuff and your your
strumming is going to improve now one
thing that's easy to do when you're
first trying to do triplets is actually
playing them kind of incorrectly leaving
a space after the after the third one
right so again if we just have one two
three four
you can subdivide that into an x' right
so like 1 & 2 & 3 & 4 and
you could do even more have 4 strokes
per beat one E and a two E and A three E
and of Lorien and I see I hear a lot of
players kind of confuse it with the
triplet so I've heard a lot of players
kind of do like a one E and two E and uh
and what they're doing is they're
leaving that fourth beat open they're
not really playing symmetrical triplets
or not cutting a B into thirds they're
just not playing the fourth note of a
quarter right so the best way to do that
is really just to get an ear for it
trim the chocolate-chocolate more one
two three four one two
so by breaking up triplets you're kind
of breaking up the monotony and just
kind of taking yourself out of the flow
so you can recognize the flow of a
triple better right
so the first three beats are going to be
triplets and the fourth one is just
going to be down stroke triplet triplet
triplet more actually I'll make it up
straight right so triple a triplet Jim
Bohlen 1 triplet 2 triplet 3 triplet 1
triplet 2 triplet now another really
important use for triplets is to
actually use them within a scale or a
solo or something like that and this is
also a good lesson for alternate picking
so we're going to do is we're just going
to take the first 8 notes of a minor
we're gonna make it easy we're gonna
make it just open two three open two
three open two right so those are our
eighth notes 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
and now with your pick again I want you
to go down up down up down up down up
right don't go down down down down down
down down down it's gonna be much better
practice for you go down up down down up
down up now the way we're going to
introduce triplets is we're going to do
these in 3 note bursts and then go back
1 and then go 3 forward right so we have
eighth notes so we're gonna play 3 1 2 3
and I'm going trim oh right down up down
and then I'm going to go back one note
through the scale so I was started
opening 2 3 and now I'm going to go to 3
open a so I'm advancing one note further
through the scale but I'm still keeping
this kind of triplet feel to it right so
starts going 3 notes of time open 2 3
I'm going to go back 1 2 3
a back 1 3 a and to a back 1 open a 2 a
3 a back 1 2 a
create open D back 1/3 a open D 2 right
so
triple it chaplain chaplain chaplain
chaplain chaplain then you can end it on
Ecore so you can really develop a lot of
speed you can do this with any scale
even like I let's take like an a minor
pentatonic do the same thing right so a
minor pentatonic is just if we start on
five ready go five eight five seven five
seven and we'll go through all the way
through so five five seven five seven
five seven five eight five eight right
so one two three chocolate chocolate
chocolate chocolate chocolate chocolate
chocolate chocolate chocolate and then
you do the same thing backwards so
really doing that in an alternate
picking way is a great way to develop
speed and again you get the feel of how
a triplet sounds and then you can kind
of work those into context and remember
try to stagger like if you're strumming
you're doing solos or whatever just
scale practice try to stagger one beat
as a triplet and then another one just
is maybe like a regular like a one and
two and triplet four one two three four
one and two and triplet four one and two
and triple at four because if you do all
four of them as triplets you're really
not going to get the ability to kind of
switch in and out of them at will which
is something that you really want to do