Triplets and Pick Direction

[CrazyMandolin]

I have a very small question about triplets and pick direction that hopefully will springboard into full-on triplet mayhem.

I'm working with Huckleberry Hornpipe, which includes multiple triplets in the forms of hammer-on/pull-off and I started playing around with the idea and came to my question.

If I play a triplet with hammer on for the second note (the first being picked, downstroke) but I want to pick the third note, what direction should I go with. It seems, from the guidance I've gotten that since whatever follows the triplet should be a downstroke to keep to standard direction, I should play an upstroke.

What say you pickers?

[John Flynn]

Enda Scahill covers this in his Irish tenor banjo book. Admittedly he is talking about tenor banjo, not mandolin, and he is focused on Irish music, not any other kind of music. However, he is also an all-Ireland mandolin champ, he is one of those guys who seems to be able to play anything in any genre and that book has most extensive discussion of triplets I've seen. His perspective is that triplets are always down-up-down and the next note after a triplet is always down.

The preference for a downstroke always seems to be about giving proper emphasis to a note. However much we try to make upstrokes equal to downstrokes, the reality is that they are often not equal at performance tempos. So I would think of it more as "What sound are you going for with each note, stronger or weaker?" I also think a hammer-on would generally be weaker than any picked note. It seems to me that if the formula for a triplet is "strong-weak-strong," followed by "strong," The picking you describe should be "down-hammer-down...down."

However, if you are sure your upstrokes are 100% as strong as your downstrokes at performance speed (I know mine are not!) it doesn't matter. Or if it is not that important to the sound you are trying to create that the first and last notes of a triplet be strong and the next note be strong, that's fine too, it doesn't matter.

So If you are playing Irish trad, I would definitely follow Scahill's advice, hammer-on or not, because there is a certain "bounce" trad players are trying to create with triplets. With any other kind of music, it is just a choice based on how you play and how you want to sound.