Triplet

What it means

A triplet divides a note value into three equal parts where, under the prevailing order, two would stand. It is the most common of the irregular divisions and the counterpart to the duplet, which sets a two-part division in a triple-metre context.

In the notation

Above or below the group stands the numeral 3, mostly with a bracket or beam. The three notes are written in the value that, without the numeral, would yield two: three eighths marked as a triplet fill the space of two ordinary eighths, that is, one quarter. With repeated triplets in a passage, the numeral is often set only at the beginning.

Musical use

The triplet brings triple division into a duple-organized surrounding and thereby seems more flowing and more urgent than the regular division. If triplets and straight eighths run simultaneously in different voices, the ratio two against three arises, the basic form of polyrhythm.

A question of its own concerns the coincidence of triplet and dotted rhythm. In Baroque music and in large parts of later practice, a dotted figure standing against simultaneous triplets was often assimilated to them — the short note then coincides with the third triplet note. Whether this is meant in a given case is judged differently and belongs among the known questions of interpretation; in jazz and popular music the corresponding assimilation is, as swing phrasing, the rule anyway.

The triplet is to be distinguished from the regular triple division in triple-metre time signatures: in six-eight time, three eighths per beat are the norm and need no numeral.

Performance practice

Play the three notes evenly, without inner accentuation; the most common inaccuracy is that the triplet sounds like a dotted figure. Practise two against three by first securing both layers separately and then joining them very slowly, with the start of the beat as an anchor. And when dotting stands against a triplet, decide deliberately on one solution and keep to it within the piece.