What do they mean with Triplet feel?

I have been reading a good bit about blues music (my personal favorite) and blues playing and notice that they mention 'a triplet feel' a lot. They also talk about 'shuffles' and, of course, twelve bar blues. I think I understand twelve bar blues but I am lost on triplets and shuffle. Can someone explain what those terms really mean?

Also, I know that solos are based on pentatonic scales, right? Yet when you listen to solos, they seem to jump all over the place - from one scale to another and then to another and back again. Is that what I am hearing or is it my imagination?

Thanks.

OK,

A shuffle is almost a swing sort of feel, if you listen to twelve bar you'll know what I mean... kinda duh duh.... duh duh.... duh duh.... duh duh (Works better as I can hear it in my head than in print!)

Triplets are exactly what they sound like, notes in threes - happens alot, particularly when playing at speed. Just think of the notes in groups of three.

On Pentatonics, you're probably hearing people using all 5 patterns in a particular key, with which you can get across most of the fret board - look here

Not all solos are pentatonic - many use hybrid scales, or the modes (being a vai fan, I like Lydian). Look here for modal stuff.

This really expands your ability to deliver a face melter over pretty much anything! :D

Well first, search for triplet on the forums. This topic came up awhile ago, and I'm pretty sure that it was explained rather well...

Basically, a triplet is 3 notes in the space of 2. For example, if you were to take a space of one beat (that's 2 eighth-notes), and crammed three eighth notes in the same amount of time, it's called a triplet. It can be done with any kind of note, from whole to 32nd....

"swing" or "shuffle" feel is when the downbeat of an eighth-note gets more time then the upbeat. If you have the cash, buy finale. With finale you can write songs and, if need be, put them into swing feel. The difference it makes is that is generates a forward motion in the music. Listen to a classical piece by Segvia, and then listen to some bebop by Charlie Parker - you'll hear a difference in the eighth-notes.

In standard jazz or blues notation, it has been agreed that a shuffle feel for eighth-notes (this is basically the only thing that is affected, but it still changes the music drastically), is like this - a quarter note and an eighth note in a triplet. This doesn't sound like it could be a triplet, but a quarter note is just like two eighth notes - therefore there are still three eighth notes in there. You can also do this on finale, but if you don't wanna buy it - there's a program called noteworthy composer that is free to download, and you can create quarter/eighth triplets to hear the sound... but it doesn't do shuffle feel....

Powertab may also do shuffle feel...

BTW - when playing the blues, two scales are used, primarily - the blues scale and the mixolydian scale.

The blues scale stays constant throughout the whole 12-bar blues, but the mixolydian scale needs to change when the chord changes.

ex. - if A7 is the I, then you would use A blues scale, and A mixolydian

but on D7 - use A blues scale, but D mixolydian.

You can find the mixolydian scale in my modes tutorial on my instructor's page. (link on my signature).

In regards to triplets, my teacher and I went through an interesting lesson on CLAPPING. My timing is pretty bad as I tend to speed up and slow down at random. So, set a metronome at a standard slowish pace and CLAP or slap your knee on every "ONE" beat. That's easy. The interesting thing is clapping ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three, ONE-two-three, with the emphasis on the ONE. That's a triplet. The exercise was to clap ONE-two (half notes), ONE-two-three (triplets), ONE-two-three-four (quarter notes) and so on. It's SO much easier to just clap until you "get" the tempo, then try to play it. Think of stuffing more notes (or claps!) between the "ONE" beat. Hope that makes sense. :)

Thank you both for the information and the exercise. I'll have to try it!

Thanks again.