triplet notes

[Barn Owl]

So on a lot of the fiddle tunes I've been playing I see these triplet notes (correct me if I'm wrong in notation "speak") thrown in every now and again and was wondering if all three notes should be picked or just the first and let the other 2 ring?

I was told to pick all three notes because the alternative is cheating.. but I see a lot of well established players do this..

[bobby bill]

They are generally just called "triplets." ("Notes" being redundant and all.) I most often pick the first note and hammer the others but that is lot due to my limitations in picking, plus if you alternate pick the triplets, your alternate picking ends up backward. The one musical reason for doing it this way is that it gives a better accent to the note the triplets are leading up to. On the other hand, I find that the more capable pickers will pick each note. Tempo may also dictate which route you go with the slower tempos being more amenable to the picking-each-note method.

[Don Julin]

Barn Owl you will find many different opinions about triplets but the way I see it, it depends on what style of music you are playing. If you are talking about Irish music (jigs and reels) picking the triplets with a quick down-up down or an up-down-up pattern depending on where the triplets is placed in the measure and whether the tune is a reel or a jig will give you an authentic Irish sound. American styles (bluegrass, swing, etc) tend to feature using the left hand to perform triplets by using hammer-ons and pull-offs. Sam Bush uses a combination of these techniques where the first note is picked with a down-stroke, followed by a hammer-on or pull-off for the second note, finishing the triplet with an upstroke. I cover many of these techniques in my upcoming book "Mandolin For Dummies" that will be in stores in this summer.

[Pete Martin]

Use your ear and listen to how each technique Don talked about has a rythmic impact on the flow of notes. I will do each depending of which sounds correct to me (once again as Don mentioned, very often stylistic based).

One should really practice all different ways to gain control of each.

[JeffD]

but the way I see it, it depends on what style of music you are playing.

Don nails it.

When I first got my resonator, I saw that it has sustain to spare. You can hit a note and go out for coffee and come back and its still in there.

So I played around with "what can I do with infinite sustain", and I started going triplets and runs all entirely as hammer ons. It was really fun for a while to see how much speed I could get. But soon enough I could see that for many tunes the rhythm was wrong. All the notes were there, because the sustain hardly diminishes in the course of a triplet or run, but for Irish and tango tunes, and even ragtime, I found that by not picking the individual notes I stole the soul out of the tune.

So now I hammer on triplets only when it fits what the tune requires.

[Barn Owl]

Good stuff.. thank guys!