Q: Can you maybe lend a hand with this? I can sight read rhythms fine when it's just combinations of whole/half/quarter/8ths/16th notes (with rests or dots or ties or whatever)... But I get thrown off whenever triplets (or some kind of tuplet) comes in to play. I can clap out quarter note triplets or eighth note triplets over a click, but when it comes in the middle of a measure, or on an offbeat, or if there's only just one or two (instead of 3) of the triplets or if you have the triplets tied together with other notes, or a quarter note triplet paired with an eighth note triplet... all that kind of stuff just throws me off. I guess I kind of internalized the triplets in groups of 3 (three 8th note or 3 quarter note triplets in a line starting on the downbeat) and when they don't fall like that, I just can't feel the rhythm. Do you have any tips for how to count this stuff, or better yet just like how to internalize the feel of the notes to make them c
 ome more
  easy and natural? Ideally, I just want to get to the point where I can just feel it and play it naturally and don't have to be counting continuously in my head when trying to read. Just like when playing for fun, or making my own music I'm feeling the pulses of the bar, but I'm not counting all the subdivisions just letting the rhythms come naturally. I feel like I'm probably using all these tuplets a lot in my own playing and not even realizing when I'm doing it.
A: if you are familiar with the "1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &" system for counting 8th notes, or the "1e&a2e&a3e&a4e&a" system for counting 16th notes, imagine a system of "1-trip-let-2-trip-let-3-trip-let-4-trip-let" for counting triplets. this should help you subdivide. for example, the sort of west african triplet clave rhythm would be 1 _ let (2) trip-let (3) _ let (4) _ _. write out some random combinations of triplets, and practice counting like this. maybe even go to random dot org and get a string of 12 binary digits, and say the 1's are where the notes are and the 0's are where the spaces are. write it out as triplets (that will give you writing practice) and then read it (that will give you reading practice.)