Counting triplets in The Art of Bop Dumming???

Z

Zdrums

Junior Member
Ok, I've been working on Jon Riley's book The Art of Bop Drumming. I got my swing feel down with the exercises on page 9. I go through the beats, but I don't get counting triplets. I tried counting, but then my hand stops playing the swing ride. If anyone could give me some tips on counting triplets while playing these exercises, I would greatly appreciate it. thank you
 
Take it slowly.
1-trip-let 2-trip-let 3-trip-let 4-trip-let
 
1 2 uh 3 4 uh for the basic ride pattern

there are a few ways people count trippelets

1 trip let 2 trip let ....

1 tee ta 2 tee ta

I prefer 1 & uh 2 & uh
 
I personally like counting

1 T L 2 T L 3 T L 4 T L etc..

however my university prof counts 1 lol ly 2 lol ly etc.

some of my friends count 1 trip let 2 trip let etc..


i've just found for me, I can say 1 t l faster then anything else.
 
Try playing straight triplets on the snare drum with the left hand and the ride pattern with your right hand
 
Wow! I'm 23, and the internet still amazing me. Thanks for the counting advice. Coast to coast am is about to come on here. Good show tonight, later.
 
Not sure if you wanted actual counting advice, or ideas on how to play the patterns right.

I'll give you the second.

Play it slowly and keep in mind that if you're playing straight triplets with the left and the swing pattern with your right, your hands WILL land together on 3 points:

Beat 1, Beat 2, and the 3rd note of Beat 2 (the third of the 3 triplets). Does that make sense? Once you've got that landing together it's just a matter of repeating it till it's grounded and then going on and playing all the variations (of which there are many).
 
Dang,

To me this 1-trip-let 2-trip-let... counting is little clumsy. I use Indian syllables
ta-ki-ta or ta-ke-ta, I found this is smoother way of counting.
 
groups of twos TA-KA
groups of threes TA-KI-TA
groups of fours TA-KA-TE-MI
 
Some time ago, I had trouble counting triplets while playing the ride cymbal pattern, because I thought that since swing is in triplets already, triplets appearing on a swing chart must be interpreted differently than if they were simply counted out above the general "1234" quarter note pulse of swing. This is a misconception. Count triplets in 4/4 swing as if they were eighth notes in a bar of 12/8.

In other words, you can play a bar of 4/4 swing and immediately follow it with a bar of 12/8 bembe without changing the feel of your groove... the only thing that changes is your approach to the triplet feel from swung eighths to straight eighths.
 
oops said:
Not sure if you wanted actual counting advice, or ideas on how to play the patterns right.

I'll give you the second.

Play it slowly and keep in mind that if you're playing straight triplets with the left and the swing pattern with your right, your hands WILL land together on 3 points:

Beat 1, Beat 2, and the 3rd note of Beat 2 (the third of the 3 triplets). Does that make sense? Once you've got that landing together it's just a matter of repeating it till it's grounded and then going on and playing all the variations (of which there are many).
Click to expand...

You're only counting beats 1 & 2 here, right?

What I mean is, if you play beats 3 & 4, then the hands will land together on 3, 4 and the 3rd beat of beat 4, correct?
 
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