Love Triangle

At the moment, I'm playing in a band trying to reinterpret some classic zydeco tracks by the likes of Clifton Chenier, and in doing so have been trying my hand at playing some zydeco percussion. The genre's better known for its use of the washboard or "veste frottoir", but for me the gem of Louisiana percussion is the triangle.

The urban dictionary defines a 'triangle player' as "someone who does something easy very well or because they're lazy". On the rare occasions that triangle players are featured on television, they're depicted as nerds or simpletons, convinced that their exaggeratedly simple triangle playing is great music. For idiotic trianglists, check out Ed Grimley from Saturday Night Live or Gene from the cartoon Bob's Burgers.

Ed Grimley from Saturday Night Live

The fact of the matter is that playing the triangle is not easy. Playing with controlled dynamics (volume) can be tricky, and sometimes the steel beater is replaced with a knitting needle to enable quieter playing. As with any any percussion instrument (or instrument for that matter), keeping steady time is a difficult musical skill. Cajun triangle also involves a lot of coordination between the left and right hands. The left hand dangles the triangle from the middle finger and, at intervals, muffles the sound with the thumb and remaining fingers. The right hand holds the beater inside the triangle, and strikes two sides of it. Here's an example of a basic 2-step triangle rhythm:

A basic 2-step rhythm

But triangle playing doesn't have to be simple. In the video below, virtuoso percussionist Mino Cinelu does some really fancy things (check out his high-speed triangle playing about four minutes in). Keyboardist Herbie Hancock intoduces Mino, likening the mind-blowing eighties technology of the Casio calculator watch to the humble technology of the triangle.

Mino Cinelu playing with Herbie Hancock and Headhunters

The triangle isn't only found in Cajun and North American music, it also plays a role in Brazilian samba and bossa nova. Here's an amazing dancefloor-friendly track by Carlinhos Brown (the YouTube title says it's by Sergio Mendes, but it's not).

Magdalenha by Carlinhos Brown

European classical music is not immune to the allure of the triangle either. Hungarian composer Franz Liszt featured the instrument prominantly in his first piano concerto. The triangle player's right at the back, on the left. He must get so bored reading all those rests...

Liszt's Piano Concerto No. 1

And if you thought that we'd already reached the pinnacle of triangle-making technology, then you were wrong. Percussion manufacturers LP have created the one-handed triangle; as Doug Hinrichs explains, "what we have actually is not a triangle as in a three-sided geometric shape". Advanced.

Doug Hinrichs shows off the one-handed triangle