Ramblings about triplets and trebles...

[Jill McAuley]

I just put up a blog post rambling on about playing triplets and trebles, inspired by the other things I do in my life, namely dog training, and playing the drums - here's a link if any of ye want to check it out:

Triplets & Trebles

[Dagger Gordon]

I'm really happy to see you writing this sort of stuff here on the Cafe again. I've always enjoyed your posts a lot.

As a sheep farmer with a young dog it was also interesting to get a wee insight into your dog training methods!

[Bertram Henze]

Dog training is more than just an analogy, I think, since the mechanism of learning is very similar across subjects and species. I am always thankful when people consider training their dogs at all. Most get trained by their dogs, I guess, to be stick throwers and can openers.
I have no dog myself, but I figure the dog expects you to take the role of pack leader, and if you fail in that, I imagine the dog thinking "hey, my pack leader is defunct - what shall I do? Someone has to see to the pack, or else we're in trouble, so I'll be pack leader."

[bruce.b]

Great article Jill. Using the dog training analogy was a brilliant idea.

[John Kelly]

A very good article, Jill, and backed up with the clear video clip. I think that the idea of tension is critical, as you say, and something i am aware of in my own playing, along with gripping the pick that wee bit tighter! I've watched young drummers learning pipe band rhythms and when they try the rools they begin fine, and slowly, then as they try to get up to speed the tension creeps in noticeably and the roll disintegrates. Learning the basic paradiddles is a fine example of this - played slowly they are easy, but speed needs to be built up at a pace comfortable to the player.

[liestman]

Love how you break apart the components and the common issues. Spot on advice!

[mikeyes]

Excellent advice!

[Eddie Sheehy]

Great article , Jill...
Plus, I've taught my mandolin to "Stay".

[Jill McAuley]

Dog training is more than just an analogy, I think, since the mechanism of learning is very similar across subjects and species. I am always thankful when people consider training their dogs at all. Most get trained by their dogs, I guess, to be stick throwers and can openers.
I have no dog myself, but I figure the dog expects you to take the role of pack leader, and if you fail in that, I imagine the dog thinking "hey, my pack leader is defunct - what shall I do? Someone has to see to the pack, or else we're in trouble, so I'll be pack leader."

I'm with you Bertram as regards the learning mechanisms being similar across subjects and species - but we differ when you bring up the "pack leader" stuff. Dogs, just like us, learn to do stuff via what works and what doesn't. They're not status seeking - they merely engage in behaviours that work. They don't engage in behaviours for nebulous consequences such as position or status - they do stuff because of seeking to gain or avoid an immediate consequence. And just like us, the more they rehearse something, the better they get at it - so if we set things up so that they don't get opportunities to rehearse unwanted behaviour, then the unwanted behaviours will fade and lessen in strength, and if we really want to ensure they don't come back we also need to teach an alternate more appropriate behaviour. Here's another way to look at it:

If we practice or rehearse something we get better at it - but that also means that if we practice or rehearse the wrong things we can get "better" at them and imbed them in our playing, making it difficult to "unlearn" them. That was one of the things I was trying to get at with my triplets/trebles blog. I think of mental pathways as actual paths that we walk down when engaging in a task, and if it's something we do over and over that pathway becomes well worn. Think of a path through a field of tall grass. If kids take it as a shortcut to school the grass will flatten and over time the path will be worn down to dirt because it's so well trodden. If we want them to not take that shortcut we have to both provide another route as an option, and block access to the unwanted shortcut. As the kids get in the habit of taking the new route, the memory of the shortcut will weaken and fade. Then over time the grass will grow again and the unknowing eye will never even realize that a shortcut existed. Now that I think of it I may have to add this to my blog post - if someone is really unhappy with their triplets/trebles it may be a good idea to set them aside from their playing entirely for a portion of time to let them "fade", and then return to them, starting from square one, so that the poorly embedded former technique is less of a default response, having faded somewhat, making it easier for them to introduce and practice good technique.

As for the stick throwing human - remember that the interaction between dogs and humans is a two way street. So the human learned "If I throw the stick, my dog brings it back to me - this is a good way to tire him out, so I'll throw it again!" and the dog learned "If I bring the stick back to the human, they'll throw it for me again - this is fun so I'll keep bringing it back!" The behaviour continues because it's working for both of them!

[Jill McAuley]

Great article , Jill...
Plus, I've taught my mandolin to "Stay".

Just think Eddie, if you'd taught all the mandolins you've had over the years to "stay" there'd be no room in your house!

[Jill McAuley]

I'm really happy to see you writing this sort of stuff here on the Cafe again. I've always enjoyed your posts a lot.

As a sheep farmer with a young dog it was also interesting to get a wee insight into your dog training methods!

Cheers David - coming from a player I admire so much that means a lot to me!

I had a great collie growing up - his parents worked sheep and were great at it but he ended up in Dublin, no interest in sheep whatsoever, but very fond of traveling in cars. If you walked by a car and the door was open he'd hop right in, no matter who's car it was!

[Bertram Henze]

They're not status seeking

It was not exactly status seeking I was aiming at - rather a way of trying to make do with a bad situation.
Some Background: As a child, I was chased and bitten by a dog that habitually would be "parked" outside the front door of it's owner's house the whole day. And I was just innocently passing by on a bicycle. I still remember how terrified I was by the irrational agression of the animal, and still, 50+ years later, I change to the other side of the road whenever someone with that particular breed of dog crosses my way (and in many cases, that incidental dog goes wild with barking at me, just like they all knew me).
Much later, I have observed a similar behavior with dogs all along the West coast of Ireland, where they chase cars (and cyclists, yes). The accordion player Paddy O'Brien tells several such stories in his autobiographical book "The Road from Castlebarnagh", including an incident after which the dog had to be drowned.
Bottom line: dogs left on their own and ignored by their owners tend to get lost in finding out what could please their owners and what might end their being "locked out" from social life. I don't blame the dogs - they just reflect the personality of their owner in one way or the other - but with many people I prefer them keeping their personality to themselves and not putting it on display in the front yard.

[Jill McAuley]

It was not exactly status seeking I was aiming at - rather a way of trying to make do with a bad situation.
Some Background: As a child, I was chased and bitten by a dog that habitually would be "parked" outside the front door of it's owner's house the whole day. And I was just innocently passing by on a bicycle. I still remember how terrified I was by the irrational agression of the animal, and still, 50+ years later, I change to the other side of the road whenever someone with that particular breed of dog crosses my way (and in many cases, that incidental dog goes wild with barking at me, just like they all knew me).
Much later, I have observed a similar behavior with dogs all along the West coast of Ireland, where they chase cars (and cyclists, yes). The accordion player Paddy O'Brien tells several such stories in his autobiographical book "The Road from Castlebarnagh", including an incident after which the dog had to be drowned.
Bottom line: dogs left on their own and ignored by their owners tend to get lost in finding out what could please their owners and what might end their being "locked out" from social life. I don't blame the dogs - they just reflect the personality of their owner in one way or the other - but with many people I prefer them keeping their personality to themselves and not putting it on display in the front yard.

Funnily enough, I specialize in working with dogs who display behaviours similar to the ones you describe - charging and barking at things, whether it's other dogs, people, cars bicycles etc. Dogs who engage in behaviour like that are generally, underneath all the aggressive looking "display", quite fearful and unsure - as a result they lunge and bark to create distance, they want the thing they're aiming their display at to stay as far away as possible. It usually works - folks don't tend to stick around long when a dog is chasing and roaring at them! And in the case of cars/bicycles/motorbikes etc they keep moving, so to the dog's mind their behaviour was successful at keeping the scary threat away. And if you also add in the fact that chasing stuff, and being triggered by sudden or fast movement to chase something is a trait that is in all dogs - it's one of the reasons we found them so useful way back in the day and started isolating aspects of their behaviour that worked for us in certain settings, which is how we developed herding breeds, and hunting breeds, and guardian breeds. That inspiration to chase stuff has faded in some of our domestic dogs, and still remains in others. One of the reasons I specialize in working with dogs like this is because I have a dog like that - I can assure you he is not a reflection of my personality, but rather a product of the environment he grew up in. He came from a loving family who lived rurally in Central California and for the first 4 months of his life he only knew peaceful countryside. They had to surrender him to a local animal shelter during the recession here when many homes in that area were being foreclosed on. I ended up pulling him out of that shelter as his chances of getting our alive were nil, and bringing him to the shelter where I worked. He's a great dog, but he had a country skill set, and that didn't translate to him adapting well to city life, hence the barking and lunging. He would've been hard work for the average family adopting him, so I ended up bringing him home. I've done a ton of work with him to help him feel more at ease with the hectic nature of city living (so that he stopped perceiving every single thing as a potential threat) and he's an absolute star now. Bottom line: the environment influences behaviour just as much as the owner does. Classic example I'm seeing a lot of now with clients in San Francisco are folks who've moved there for work in the tech industry and brought their dogs with them from the suburban or small town environment they previously called home. Many of these folks never really trained their dogs beyond "sit" and the dog learning it's name, and in the quieter setting (and likely having a backyard so not really walking their dog a lot) they could get away with it and indeed would probably have been fine if they'd remained in that slower paced scenario. Fast forward to their move to a city like San Francisco and they now have a dog who's overwhelmed by all the new sights and sounds, not used to being so close to other dogs, people, traffic etc, and never learned how to walk on leash, wait at the curb, lie down politely while their human sits outside of a cafe etc etc - the result being dog meltdown!

I've also met dogs who initially started out fearful of fast moving stuff and then kind of moved into just automatically chasing things because it was their only real pastime. There was a dog in a neighboring road when I was a kid and a similar thing happened to me, he leapt off his step roaring and chased me down to the corner. He was always on that step and struck my as pretty bored, never went anywhere with his owners so chasing stuff was his routine and a hobby of sorts I guess!

Ok, now back to our regular programming - mandolins!

[Jill McAuley]

Apologies for veering off topic folks - I broke my own personal rule of not talking about dogs on a Sunday, which is me day off!

If anyone tries out any of the things I suggested in the blog post and finds them helpful I'd love to hear about it, so keep me posted! Now I'm off to teach my mandolin to "stay"...

[JH Murray]

You've given me good advice on dealing with my dog, and my mandolin. Thank you for both! I love the sharing here at the Cafe. You never know what you are going to learn.

[Eddie Sheehy]

Just think Eddie, if you'd taught all the mandolins you've had over the years to "stay" there'd be no room in your house!

I taught those ones to "Fetch"...

[foldedpath]

Jill, thanks for that post. Some good information there!

If I may, I'd like to toss in a few suggestions from my years-long struggle to get this technique down. I wouldn't say that I'm 100% there with trebles... they still flummox me a bit when trying to fit them into reels at full tempo, but it's progress. Anyway, here are a few tips I've found over the years for this particular technique that may help someone:

* Try angling the pick a little more than you normally would (rotate thumb down a tiny bit) when playing trebles. Obviously you can't be constantly angling back and forth in the middle of a fast tune like a reel, but you might try playing all your notes with a bit more angle to make the trebles easier to pull off.

* Other players may approach this differently, but I think of trebles as having a speed of their own, independent of the tune. That's generally how "ornaments" like cuts, rolls, and taps are learned and played on the other instruments used in Irish traditional music, and I don't think it's different on mandolin. Start learning them at a comfortable slow tune pace so you're not interfering with the rhythm pulse of the tune. Once you finally get a nice tight treble technique nailed, you don't have to vary the speed for different dance tempos and rhythm styles. Like the cuts and rolls of a fiddler or flute player, it can be an articulation that is independent of the tune tempo.

* There are different approaches to how much you want to hear the trebles "ring" or have a more percussive, damped quality. Damping can be applied lightly with the edge of your hand on the strings, or with how much of the pick's tip you expose to the strings. You can hear this with tenor banjo players. Some let the trebles ring enough to hear the note pitch, and others play more percussively where you can barely hear any pitch at all. Both styles are valid, it's just personal preference. My own preference is for the more damped, percussive version, but if you prefer a more ringing treble where you can hear the pitch, then go for it!

Finally, remember that trebles aren't the only articulation available for mandolin players when playing Irish trad. It's probably the only thing you'd use in a session, because it's the loudest of the available techniques; the only thing you'd have a chance of being heard. But in a solo setting or amplified performance you can use the full array of pull-offs, hammer-ons, and slides in addition to your trebles. Those other articulations, and the ability to throw in partial chords here and there, are the main advantage we have over a banjo in this music. Might as well use 'em when you can!

[ampyjoe]

What I'd say to anyone struggling with this is to be sure that you hear the rhythmic sound of a treble in your mind's ear when you think about the tune. One way to try thinking about this is to try lilting the tune out loud. See where you'd naturally put the trebles (the group of "diddly-aye" syllables is the treble of lilting). And if, when you're lilting the tune, you don't find yourself naturally putting in a treble here and there, respectfully I'd suggest listening to lots more Irish music. Of course, given the ease of a lilted treble over the mandolin or banjo treble, you won't be able to put them in so easily when playing the tune (unless your name is... pick well-known tenor banjo player). Sorry if this is stating the obvious, but I do think it is important.

Regarding the technique, I think all of Jill's advice is good. Also, the idea of tilting the pick seems to help. I had never tried to learn how to do this, but had it pointed out to me that I do it every time. Now when I see another player I look, and most times they seem to be doing the same thing on their trebles. But not all of them! So maybe the message is to just hear the sound in your head and try to produce it, first at lower than normal speeds. Keep at it, and your hands will find the way that works best for you.

[Jill McAuley]

Yes, lilting a tune is a great way to figure out where to put your ornaments. I also do this when I'm working on variations for a tune - gives me something to do when I'm stuck in traffic!

[James Rankine]

When I'm in a session and I don't know the tune I deaden the strings with my left hand and pick with the right - throwing in trebles when I think appropriate. Given the extent of my repertoire this can amount to 2 hours of right hand practice at session speed- something that would be difficult to sustain if I stayed in and practiced on my own.

[Jim Garber]

I just put up a blog post rambling on about playing triplets and trebles, inspired by the other things I do in my life, namely dog training, and playing the drums - here's a link if any of ye want to check it out:

Triplets & Trebles

I have been getting into Irish tunes tenor banjo and found this thread but the blog is no longer at the above link. Is it still online?

[Jim Garber]

Never mind. I found it: Triplets & Trebles