How to Play Triplets on Piano Evenly, Every Time

Lesson 16 of 21 in the free Rhythm for Adult Piano Beginners series. Prefer to watch in order? Open the full playlist on YouTube.

Uneven triplets are almost always a counting problem, not a finger problem. Three notes in the space of two is a small idea with a big payoff, and knowing how to play triplets on piano evenly is what turns a lumpy approximation into the rolling figure composers from Bach to Radiohead have reached for. This lesson covers how to spot a triplet on the page, how to count it out loud, including one sitting inside an ordinary bar, and the practice fix that evens them out.

Most people play something close to a triplet. The gap between close and correct is the whole lesson.

The problem: your hands only know how to divide by two

Everything in this series has divided the beat in halves and quarters. Eighth notes, sixteenth notes, dotted figures: all of it is two, four, three plus one. Your hands have learned to split a beat down the middle. A triplet asks them to split it into three equal parts instead, and the first thing most adults produce is two uneven notes and a hiccup. The first two notes come too fast, the third is late, and the result sounds like a stumble rather than a roll.

That is not a talent problem and it is not a more-practice problem. It is the one thing you do while you practice. Adults who play uneven triplets are usually not counting them at all, or they are counting in a way that still divides by two underneath. The fix is a counting word that has three syllables and a drill that forces the three notes to be the same length.

How I teach it: three in the time of two

What a triplet is

Normally a beat divides into two equal parts, two eighth notes. A triplet divides the beat into three equal parts instead, so you play three notes in the same amount of time it normally takes to play two. On the page, it is marked with a bracket and a small 3 above the notes. That 3 is the instruction: these three fit where two would go. Composers use it to add a little of the unexpected, and performers get to add a dash of rhythmic spice with it.

How to count triplets

It is a little funky, but here is how we do it: say the word tri-ple-it, one syllable per note, tri-ple-it, tri-ple-it, tri-ple-it, tri-ple-it. Now suppose a bar has a quarter note on beat one, a triplet on beat two, and quarter notes on beats three and four. You simply replace the second number with the word: one, tri-ple-it, three, four. The triplet word occupies exactly one beat, the same as the number it replaced.

Eighth-note and sixteenth-note triplets

Habanera, from the opera Carmen, uses triplets constantly. It has eighth-note triplets, three notes in the time two eighth notes would normally take, and sixteenth-note triplets, three notes in the time of two sixteenths. The principle is identical at both sizes: three equal notes in the space normally taken by two.

The fix for uneven triplets

Take the measure that is giving you trouble and play two triplet figures back to back, tri-ple-it tri-ple-it, repeating them until the six notes are evenly spaced. Then play the bar as written. Repeat that pair, the drill and then the real bar, until the written version keeps the evenness of the drill. That is how to play triplets on piano evenly: give the hands a long enough run of equal notes that they stop dividing by two, then put the figure back where it lives. The key to a triplet is even spacing, and once you have that, the figure slots into your playing much more easily.

Try this today: make three equal

1. Say it against the click. Set a metronome to 60. Say tri-ple-it on every click for four bars, no clapping. Then clap each syllable. The three claps per click must be identical in spacing; if the third one is late, slow down.

2. Alternate twos and threes. Clap one bar of eighth notes, one and two and three and four and, then one bar of triplets, tri-ple-it four times. Switch back and forth for eight bars. This is the single best drill for getting the hands to divide by three on demand.

3. Drop a triplet into a normal bar. Clap one, tri-ple-it, three, four. Then move the triplet to beat three: one, two, tri-ple-it, four. The video's clap-along has plenty of these; the Rhythm 402 worksheet is where you write them in and check yourself.

What 100 days of this looks like

Here is the arc I usually see when an adult does this every day. Your pace will be your own.

In the first week, the third note of every triplet is late and you can hear it. By the second week, the twos-and-threes drill has given your hands a second way to divide a beat, and tri-ple-it comes out even at a slow tempo. That evenness is the result; everything after is just speed.

By the second month, a triplet dropped into a bar of ordinary notes no longer makes you hesitate, and you start hearing triplets in music you have known for years without noticing them. Around day 100, the triplet is a sound you control: you can play it at tempo, place it anywhere in the bar, and tell by ear whether a recording is playing it evenly. From Bach to Radiohead, it stops being spice you taste and becomes spice you can cook with.

Previous lesson: The 6/8 Time Signature (and 3/8) Explained: How to Count Both. Start from the beginning: What Is Rhythm in Music? Piano Basics for Adult Beginners. Next lesson: Triplets With Rests: Easier Than They Look. Follow the playlist so you do not miss it.