Q&A: PRACTICING TUPLETS

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Hi Jan,

I really like your book and am trying to make it a part of my practice time.
I have problems playing tuplets. Do you have any suggestions you could give on how to practice them?

Thank you,
John
(Bronx, New York)

Hi John:

Practicing tuplets is very important in order to be able to play some of the polyrhythms in the book. You should definitely start with them and work your way up to polyrhythms such as 5:2 and so on. Here are a few things you could try: 


Suggestion #1: Use syllables for each attack:

Just like you would use tri-po-let for triplets or 1e+a for sixteenth notes give syllables to your tuplets. Here are some examples of syllables for a quintuplet:

Hippopotamus (I've seen this one used by drummers a lot...)

Da-Di-Gi-Na-Dum (used in Konokol or Konnakol)

Ta-Ke-Ghi-Na-Ton (used in Carnatic rhythm as part of the Gatis)

You can make up your own syllables if you want.

However...

No matter which syllables you decide to use, just make sure that you divide each attack equally throughout the beat!


Suggestion #2: While you get the hang of things, you could look at tuplets as full bars:

 If it helps, imagine that each tuplet is a bar where the click only plays the downbeat.



Example: For a quintuplet, imagine that you have a bar of 5/8 where the metronome only plays the downbeat.

Example: For a septuplet, imagine that you have a bar of 7/8 where the metronome only plays the downbeat.


Suggestion #3: Practice your tuplets going in and out of other figures:

Don't just practice playing quintuplets over and over again. When you feel like you can play them, practice going in and out of other rhythmic figures. Here's an example of what a practice rhythmic line could look like:

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Well, that's all for now. I hope that these come in handy during your tuplet practice.

Thanks for reaching out!

All my best,
Jan