Rhythms: Triplet and Dotted 8th
When you’re playing bass, especially in the blues, you’ll run across triples and dotted 8th rhythms quite a lot.
In a 4/4 beat, if you’re playing triplets, you need three equal pulses to make up the space of a quarter note. We count this as “one trip-let” “two-trip-let” “three-trip-let” “four-trip-let” and then you’ve completed one bar.
The dotted 8th is also referred to as a shuffle. Basically what you’re doing here is playing the first note and the last note from a triplet group, skipping the middle one. When you’re counting the dotted eighth, you can count it like this “one-ah” two-ah” “three-ah” four-ah” where the “ah” is the short note, the last note before you start the next beat.
So it is quite a similar feel, but produces a different effect. The both line up together though.