How to play 3-over-2 and other complicated rhythms
April 17th, 2008This is what “3-over-2″ or “3 against 2″ or “2 against 3″ looks like:
It’s a complicated rhythm that takes a while to get the hang of. In the bass clef are straight quarter notes but in the treble cleff are tuplets, which means three quarter notes played in the time of two regular ones.
So for every two quarter notes in the left hand, the right hand is supposed to play three quarter notes.
You might also encounter 3-over-2 with eighth notes:
The principle is the same: two hands playing in different rhythms.
To get a feel for this rhythm, I suggest you take a walk:
- Count 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, and so on on each step. Left foot is 1, right foot is 2, left foot is 3, right foot is 4, and so on. You’re counting a regular 4/4 beat.
- Hold your arms by your side. Now slap both your hands on your legs as triplets: 123-123-123-123… So for each footstep, your hands hit your sides three times.
- Now alternate your hands: RLR-LRL-RLR-LRL, …
- Stopping hitting your leg with your left hand. Now your right hand is hitting the tuplets, i.e. the “3″ from “3-over-2″.
- Hit your left hand twice for each foot step to play the duple notes, i.e the “2″ from “3-over-2″.
It can be rather tricky at first to coordinate this, but with some practice — a long walk — you should get the hang of it.
Another approach is to count out the rhythm:
- First, count the triplets as one-and-two-and-three-and-, one-and-two-and-three-and-, …
- Then count it as one-two-and-three, one-two-and-three, …
- Play the left hand on one and the and between two and three.
- Play the right hand on one, two and three.
I hope this picture will make it a little clearer:
Once you get a feel for this rhythm, it isn’t so hard to play anymore.
July 4th, 2008 at 11:11 pm
In Chopin’s Fantasie-Impromptu, the difficulty starts to arise in the fifth measure where 8 notes in the right hand is against 6 in the left. In this case how do I play it?
December 20th, 2009 at 7:55 am
It’s actually 3 against four.
March 21st, 2010 at 6:49 am
I have been working on the sight reading studies at http://pianostudies.angelfire.com/ and there are four or five very difficult studies that have 3 against 4 and 4 against 5 and 3 against 2 etc.
July 27th, 2010 at 2:49 pm
[...] V’Shamru By Tiven, on July 27th, 2010 I wrote V’shamru for the choir of Temple Beth El in Aptos, CA. I had this tune in my head for a couple years before using it in this piece, and if you hung out with me at all in college you probably heard me play it on piano. Repeating the middle section, over and over, helped me learn to play the rhythm 3-over-2 (click here if you don’t know what 3 over 2 is and want to learn). [...]