Triplets Exercise

Hi GMC!

Welcome to another lesson focused on timing. I'll be sharing with you interactive exercises which you can do by playing along and which are designed to help you boost your timing and time keeping skills.

This time our focus will be on playing triplets, more specifically - 8th note triplets. This is probably the first kind of triplets you'll encounter when starting to get into different rhythms and note durations and I think they are the most popular of triplets as lots of jazz and blues is based on the triplet subdivision of rhythm.

The exercises in the lesson are designed in such a way that you can just play along. Grab your guitar, play the video and jam along. Focus on getting the rhythm down and hitting each note in sync with the backing track and also guide guitar track that is heard in the first half of each video. Your main goal should be to pick notes at the exact moment in time. Secondary goal should be to play correct note durations, this means how long you leave the note to ring out after you pick it.

Practicing timing is something everyone should do at any level of playing and it is one of those guitar skills which can have a dramatic impact on your overall playing. I've seen guitarists at intermediate and advanced level with amazing technique which have really bad timing. What happens in that case? Everything they play sounds a bit sloppy and they also have trouble playing with a band, along the backing track or when they need to do home/studio recording.

If this is something you'd like to get better at, please post in the lesson feedback section - I'll be glad to help you!