I’m trying to get a grasp on these little buggers, any advice on learning them? Any and all triplets… I figure starting off slowly might help…?
check out Mick Coyne’s website— he is a master of them, and he gives lots of demos on his website.
indeedy, start slow. don’t go any faster until you do it perfect, and !relaxed!!
…keep those high standards for yourself!
I thought I could do them alright until I had a workshop with Mickey Dunne.
Some good exercises that Mickey had were doing a repetative F#-G-A 3x then low or high d…Repeat ad infinitum. Also g-f#-e-d-C#-B sextuplet, also repeated to death, sometimes with an ACA triplet tacked on the end for variety. Make sure to take it slow when practicing and listen for an audible silence between each note. I noticed that when my triplets were starting to get sloppy, particularly on the F-G-As, there wouldn’t be a clean enough break between the F and the G.
The final part of Colonel Fraser or the third part of The Maid Behind the Barrel provide ample opportunities for sadistic use of triplets, if you’re into that sort of thing.
Your metronome should become your best friend if it isn’t already. Set it insanely slow (or much slower than you think you need to set it, anyway) and work your way up a notch a day, Red Violin style. Just don’t give yourself a heart attack.
I’d second checking out Mick Coyne’s website as well.
In tight triplets, I play E, G and B with only one finger not the usual two.
Mick is great but it’s been a long time that those demos and other very nice features are not available any more. He started to upgrade the site to a video version but so far there is only one tune (The Haunted House) available and nothing else (should be extremely busy as always or maybe not in good health). Unless I’m missing another url that you guys know.
One practise method that was suggested to me was to repeat your triplets first slow and then fast, slow then fast, over and over. The slow run teaches your fingers the location or “feel” of the tone holes. The fast run then practises for speed and clean execution. Repeat until fingers fall off.
djm
Beware that these so-called “triplets” are usually not notated correctly in the music (a problem of course only to those with sightreading backgrounds).
They are usually not a triplet per se but more like two sixteenths and an eighth, at least in reels.
And usually you’ll see the little dots over all three notes, but the last note is almost never played staccato. Instead the last note is usually held out to its full value.
In fact the first note of the triplet, though detached from the middle note, is often approached legato from the note preceeding the triplet, making the middle note the only one that’s truly played staccato.
You are missing the URL. You need to enter your name and email on this page: http://web.mac.com/mick.coyne/Opt_in_1/Haunted_house.html
It will then jump to the old uilleann tutor .
Mick’s site has some great stuff, but he really needs to get a web designer who understands basic navigation.
Mukade
It may be advisable to let the speed at which you can accurately play the hardest maneuver (be it triplets or other tricky passages) determine the tempo at which you play the tune. Meaning if you can book along on a tune but fall apart - on say, a triplet passage - then however slowly you need to play to nail that triplet will tell you how slowly you need to play the piece. For a while anyway.
T
Thanks Mukade.
Weird, I was already registered and when I put my name and email I only get an error message saying I’m already registered in the list and nothing else 
Mickey suggested the same thing at our spring tionol, 15 minutes a day. Can mange 5 minutes, but when I do it consistently, I can hear my playing improve by leaps and bounds. And then it degrades…
And then it degrades…
You may need to slow down more often. I go through the same cycle, and my problem is I play too fast-- I don’t give myself a change to solidify correct technique. Playing too fast leads to, and locks in bad habits, especially excessive tension. Playing too fast “undoes” the progress I made when practicing slowly.
…lots of great suggestions lads…
still…i point to my original post…
Funny- I just figured that out a few weeks ago when I was practicing triplets
I just figured that out a few weeks ago
Please take it to heart. If I’d really, ~really~ known how important this was when I started, I’d be a much better player now.
I asked my teacher “how do you get those triplets so tight?” Answer: “Practice them until you no longer need to ask that question” (and he was right) -g
Wise words!