Swing Eighth Notes Are Not Triplets!
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- čas přidán 7. 08. 2024
- All too often I see people teaching swing by saying you should count your eighth notes like triplets. That just isn't so - it's a sure-fire recipe to not swing! There's no substitute for listening to music that swings and feeling it for yourself, but in this video, I do my best tio demonstrate the difference.
I was putting together a lesson teaching bass players this same thing and I had a hard time finding anyone teaching online who agreed that swing and shuffle are not the same thing. Thank you for making this video, it illustrates the point perfectly!
Swing is in the ear and the body of the beholder. It can be felt, it can be heard, it can be approximated, but not defined. Thank you, Marc! Excellent clip! Kind regards, Paul
Just what I was looking for... bless you!
Thank you 🙏 so much for sharing this with us
Great explanation, thank you
Hmm. While I agree that the level in which something swings can very depending on tempo, I think basing swing of triplets make a lot of sense and is generally the most comprehensible way to get an ensemble playing together. I think the most productive way to look at variations in the amount of swing something has is to push or pull slightly in front or behind that third triplet partial, but still be thinking about it. Unless of course you're basing the swing off a different meter like 5let swing. Idk maybe it's just from my musical background but unless it's a solo, I like to define exactly where each note is on a grid. Obviously each note won't get played perfectly on the grid because humans have imperfect time, but it helps to know exactly what to shoot for at least
I hear you, but in the end, while I agree with the *goal* of getting an ensemble playing together, I don't agree with the *method* of doing so by focusing on triplets so much. At most, I'd say, it's "kind of" like triplets, and maybe have them play the triplets to once to get a sense of the extreme boundary in that direction, then play straight to feel the other extreme boundary, then get to work on actually swinging. So I'd try to force the issue, not by establishing a grid, but by playing recordings (especially historic ones) and then having them play along (perhaps with some simple recorded exercises). I think it's perfectly possible to get an ensemble to swing together without making it be about triplets, and well worth the effort.
One other thing worth pointing out, though - at slower tempos, or in a "shuffle" as opposed to "swing" style, then the triplet can start to make more sense.
Great video. But did you ever consider the drummer's perspective? The way we learn to play our ride cymbal, which is fundamental for this music, are the swing eighth notes, where the swung eighth note falls on the last note of the triplet. For me specifically, the jazz ride pattern is a combination of quarter notes and swung eighth notes, which gives me endless possibilities of variation. But the exercises we play for instance, are triplets played from one hand to another: Rrr-Lll, then Rlr-Lrl, and then keeping the left-hand triplet on the snare drum, Lll-Lll-Lll-Lll, and playing the quarter notes, then the swung eighth notes and the combination of those on the ride cymbal. So that math makes it perfectly even within a 1-trip-let figure. The off-beat note falls on the last note of each triplet. I know that the off beat can be tighter or looser on the ride cymbal (yeah, anywhere between 60 and 70 I guess) but the basic rythmic pattern is a quarter note subdivided into three equal parts, it can't be otherwise. For accenting, drummers can accent 2 and 4, or the off beat notes, like Elvin Jones did: 1, 2, AND3 ...
@@Mobby74 Swing Era (big band!) swing didn't have ride cymbals. The drummer mostly did a pumping 4 on the floor and _something_ with the hi-hat (depending on which year we're talking).
This is why most modern big bands aren't great for doing original Swing dances. The rhythm is off!
great video
This seems to imply, if not explicitly assert, that a 2:1 ratio for the eighths in Jazz (and, presumably, Blues) disqualifies a tune as "Swing". That's subjective semantics, I'm afraid, contradicted by a great body of work - the American Jazz catalog has loads of music long labeled as Swing that uses 2:1. For many musicians, we don't think of it so much as a "triplet feel" (why would we? it's 2:1, not 1:1:1) as a steadily syncopated rhythm naturally based on straightforward compound meter, which can of course be scored just as accurately in 12/8 time. I don't see value in asserting a restricted definition of Swing rhythms that excludes the 2:1 mode.
I don't deny the existence of styles such as shuffle where 2:1 is appropriate. But that's not what I'm talking about - just plain ordinary swing as used in most jazz.
So I guess I would say, my goal here isn't to say that there is *never* a role for triplet feel - just that this does not tell the whole story, or even 10% of the story. The vast majority of swing eighths are not 2:1.
Swing at 68% or 69% works very well for big band arrangements.
Indeed, for big band arrangements of shuffles. Otherwise, the same comments apply.
I see the triplet pattern indication is just to show the concept of swing to be played. For instance, exactly how short is a staccato note? Exactly how much stress is put on an accent? But I do understand what you are saying and think you are correct that it should be made aware.
Swing eight notes triplet is being used in a way like 2nd beat of triplet getting down so one / third notes of triplet count
I totally agree with Marc here. The "amount" of swing depends on a lot of things, from tempo to style/tradition, but also sometimes on an arranger's intention. In which case it probably makes more sense to use accents, dashes, dots etc. to indicate intended phrasing on top of the notes. At the end of the day, it's up to the musicians to interpret everything and establish the style by listening to each other - like they are doing here:
czcams.com/video/fsAMAIaas94/video.html
Where is the function on Musescore where you can adjust the ratio of the swing? Thanks.
Right click the swing text after adding it to your score from the tempo palette.
The 2:1 triplet feel is ok at a slow or moderate tempo. As the tempo increases the swing eighth notes get closer to straight eighths.
That’s ornithology. “ This IS the tune that’s played Charlie PARKER“ See. It fits perfectly.
60% would be quintuplet swing I think? 3/5 = 0.6
And septuplet swing would be 4/7 = 0.57
Nice explanation. Maybe you can help me. It's super simple and yet I'm coming up short. It all comes out robotic or just wrong.
I'm going for a traditional jazz or western swing sock rhythm and can't get it right A basic: oom chuck, oom chuck as in. "CZcams: Tuba Skinny ~ I Get the Blues" or "CZcams: Hayes Griffin , Right or Wrong // Sock Rhythm Chords // Western Swing Guitar Lesson.
Any help would be appreciated. I have Musescore 4.2. Thank you for your attention.
Do you mean, you’re looking for advice on how to get this in your own playing? Lots and lots of listening until it seeps unto your subconscious. If you mean, how to adjust the swing ratio in MuseScore’s playback, add the Swing text, then go to its properties and gradually increase or decrease the ratio until it sounds like you expect.
@@OutsideShoreMusic Thank you for the quick response.
Feeling it on guitar is easy but I can't seem to notate it in a way that sounds right.
It's 4/4. Straight quarter notes is definitely not it... but to get that 1 AND 2 AND (accent on the AND) feel just isn't working out for me. At best the swing beat seems to come out backward: AND 1 AND 2.
@@OutsideShoreMusic : I figured out something that works ok.
Quarter note - 16th note with Marcato above - rests - repeat
Too easy but I had to forget about Swing.
no one serious has ever said you’re actually playing triplets when you swing. any attempt to notate swing is wrong and will sound terrible. the idea is that you should be feeling triplets when you swing, as it’s a triplet oriented style. go to the records and this is how cats sound.
I won’t pretend to know who is “serious” and who is not, but unfortunately it’s extremely common in books and videos for well-meaning people to say that swing is triplets and not make clear it’s only “kind of sort of” similar. That’s the whole reason for this video - to clear up confusion around this.
@@OutsideShoreMusic It seems there’s a basic disconnect here regarding how to learn to swing. Your argument is about how swing should be notated (or at least it should be about that). When I say serious people, I mean people who realize it doesn’t matter how you notate swing, because that’s not how you learn to swing. When you listen to the records, it’s evident that swing is a triplet feel. So I don’t know what you mean by “kind of sort of.” There is a discernible relationship between swing and triplets. They are not unrelated as you say in the beginning of your video.
@@henry1138 No, I'm not talking about how it should be notated - I'm talking about how it should be played. I'm just trying to correct the misconception that it's exactly like triplets. it's not, it's "kind of sort of" similar to triplets, I absolutely agree with what I think you're saying - it's not learned mathematically, but by listening. That is indeed my whole point.
Vince Maggio at the Frost School of Music in Miami did indeed take the triplet idea seriously. He studied with Oscar Peterson and claimed that playing in strict triplets was in fact the only way to truly swing. The students who studied there can all attest to this.
@@iansaylor1955 That’s really interesting to hear. I’m familiar with Vince and it’s actually a little ironic to me to know that he said that, since when I talked to him, he was strongly advocating for more “modern” styles. I guess it could interesting to load an Oscar Peterson clip into an audio editor and do the math on his swing ratios, but I’d be extremely surprised if they came out to be triplets except at slow tempos - where of course he’s likely to break into sixteenths. But I can easily imagine Oscar - and hence Vince - advocating “thinking” in terms of triplets. Anyhow, I’d definitely be curious to learn more about Vince’s thinking here!