The Triplet
An eighth note triplet is a group of three evenly spaced notes played within one beat. Eighth note triplets are indicated by three eighth notes grouped together with the numeral 3 above or below them.
Each part of the triplet is worth a third of a beat. Triplets are easy to understand once you have a feel for how they are played.
Playing a triplet on each note of a scale is a good way to develop the alternate picking technique, because each note starts with an opposite stroke to the last one. This will help you become equally comfortable playing any note with either a downstroke or an upstroke.
Swing Rhythms
A swing rhythm can be created by tying the first two notes of the triplet group together.
The two eighth note triplets tied together in the following example can be replaced by a quarter note.
To simplify notation, it is common to replace the z with 6,and to write at the start of the piece 6 = z as illustrated in the following example.
