The single stroke triplet is a straight forward rudiment that involves playing one hand at a time over eighth note triplets and in previous lessons you have covered this in the time signatures of 4/4, 3/4 and 5/4. In this lesson you will be switching this to 6/8. If you have covered the 3/4 version of this lesson the exercises given here will be much easier and you can find this linked at the bottom of the page. The intention of this lesson is to familiarize you with the new time signature and how triplets move within it.
Unlike 4/4, the time signature of 6/8 can be described as 'compound' and it is the 8 at the bottom that tells you this. That means that all notes are most commonly grouped into blocks of 3 or 6 and you get six quavers worth of note values for every bar. I have included links to more detailed lessons on this subject at the bottom of the page. A single stroke triplet is a two beat movement, so fits quite nicely into even numbered time signatures like 6/8.
You will notice that below, the rudiment is written as sixteenth note triplets rather than the usual eighth note triplets. Eighth notes will work but it will sound almost identical to 3/4. It is worth playing this with a metronome set to 6/8 to get used to the unusual feel.
Exercise 1
A Single Stroke Triplet in 6/8 with standard sticking.
Tasks
- Learn the patterns up to a temp of at least 130bpm.
- Add feet to the parts.
- Orchestrate the parts.
- Apply the sticking to other time signatures.
- Apply different rudiment stickings in 3/4.
