Swung 8ths and its Subdivisions

[DjinnTronic]

Hello to you all. This is a great place!

I'm a bit confused about the proper way to play 8ths subdivisions in swing feel. This might be a common question from the beginner but I haven't found a satisfactory answer to it yet.

Ok, so I play two 8th notes in a regular "dotted eight & eight" triplet feel (=> basic swing). What happens if we want to play, for example, a sixteenth triplet instead of the first dotted 8th note? Is the second eight note still in swing triplet feel or does it become straight?

another example: If we want to play two notes in the same time we play the first dotted eight, well in straight time this would give us 2 sixteenths, but how do you subdivide a dotted note ? Do we switch to 2 straight sixteenths an then continue in swing time ? Or should we swing these two sixteenthts as well.

Basically, when playing subdivisions of 8th notes in swing time, do we stay in ternary feel for these subdivisions or do we temporarily go to straight, binary feel for these notes ? Both are possible, which way is the 'proper' jazz one ?

[Reg]

Originally Posted by DjinnTronic

Hello to you all. This is a great place!

I'm a bit confused about the proper way to play 8ths subdivisions in swing feel. This might be a common question from the beginner but I haven't found a satisfactory answer to it yet.

Ok, so I play two 8th notes in a regular "dotted eight & eight" triplet feel (=> basic swing). What happens if we want to play, for example, a sixteenth triplet instead of the first dotted 8th note? Is the second eight note still in swing triplet feel or does it become straight?

another example: If we want to play two notes in the same time we play the first dotted eight, well in straight time this would give us 2 sixteenths, but how do you subdivide a dotted note ? Do we switch to 2 straight sixteenths an then continue in swing time ? Or should we swing these two sixteenthts as well.

Basically, when playing subdivisions of 8th notes in swing time, do we stay in ternary feel for these subdivisions or do we temporarily go to straight, binary feel for these notes ? Both are possible, which way is the 'proper' jazz one ?

First to have that swing feel, the examples your using, dotted 8th and 16th or triplets... are just for reference, that's not how it would be notated. The other aspect is it's not just the sub-divisions, it's where you play on the beat, most are a little behind, but can be ahead also. It depends on what and who your playing with.
And yes every thing you play in swing style would fit in the general accent pattern. Swing feel is swing feel. Not all jazz is swing.
You either use 8th note triplets or dotted 8th and a 16th to sub-divide the beat or in this case the quarter note to notate the feel of swing. You don't mix the two methods of trying to notate swing feel.
There is no dotted 8th and 8th sub-division ... for 8th note triplet notation. The dotted 8th implies three 16th notes and the other 8th implies two, that would be five 16ths.
You can have dotted 8th and 16th for sub-division of the quarter note, no triplets. And you can, using two 8th notes, make the first 8th note a 16th note triplet tied to the second 8th note. And then make the second 8th note also a 16th note triplet, which would now be a group of six or a sextuplet.
In your next example if you really want to notate the dotted 8th of a Dotted 8th and one 16th note sub-division of the beat as two dotted 16ths followed by a 16th, might look cleaner as 16th-32nd-32nd-16th-16th, with first 16th tied to first 32nd and second 32nd tied to next 16th followed by last 16th... no ones going to be able to hear the difference between that crazy sub-division and simple 8th note triplet.
You seem to be mixing the two methods of notating the swing feel...
If you need more examples please let me know... it's no problem

[DjinnTronic]

Thank you for your explanation and time!

I got that part of the two ways of notating swing, [dotted eight-eight] vs. [triplet 8th-triplet eight rest - triplet eight], which are just the binary and the ternary perspectives of the same thing. And I'm also aware of the elasticity of the whole swing concept, and also microtiming like playing behind, on top or in front of the beat. But lets ignore this for now.

So, I didn't explain myself correctly. Let me try again, as it's not notating which troubles me right now, its reading.

Just for te sake of illustration lets assume that we play in a hard shuffle way, a rigid 8ths triplet swing.

There is this classic jazz trill of a 16th triplet on the beat followed by an 8th on the 'and'. Now, the first 16th triplet is clear for me to play, but what with the second 8th...do I still play it in swing feel? If I stick to the hard shuffle feel for the 8th note, it introduces a rest of 1 sixteenth triplet between the trill and the 8th and I find this annoying - it's rubs against my legato phrasing. Intuitively I tend to play the second 8th right behind the 16th triplet trill, which is like playing a straight, binary eight. What would be the 'standard' way to play this in the Jazz idiom ?

I hope this is clear, it's not easy to explain what I mean. An thanks again for your input!

[Reg]

Originally Posted by DjinnTronic

Thank you for your explanation and time!

I got that part of the two ways of notating swing, [dotted eight-eight] vs. [triplet 8th-triplet eight rest - triplet eight], which are just the binary and the ternary perspectives of the same thing. And I'm also aware of the elasticity of the whole swing concept, and also microtiming like playing behind, on top or in front of the beat. But lets ignore this for now.

So, I didn't explain myself correctly. Let me try again, as it's not notating which troubles me right now, its reading.

Just for te sake of illustration lets assume that we play in a hard shuffle way, a rigid 8ths triplet swing.

There is this classic jazz trill of a 16th triplet on the beat followed by an 8th on the 'and'. Now, the first 16th triplet is clear for me to play, but what with the second 8th...do I still play it in swing feel? If I stick to the hard shuffle feel for the 8th note, it introduces a rest of 1 sixteenth triplet between the trill and the 8th and I find this annoying - it's rubs against my legato phrasing. Intuitively I tend to play the second 8th right behind the 16th triplet trill, which is like playing a straight, binary eight. What would be the 'standard' way to play this in the Jazz idiom ?

I hope this is clear, it's not easy to explain what I mean. An thanks again for your input!

Cool, I'll take it you were implying Dotted 8th and a 16th...
And yes unless other wise notated, almost like a slur was placed over figure, also can be similar to how a turn feels, tied to next note.
Unless the tempo is somewhat slow... there's usually no problems, most of those figures have been used so much in jazz heads, most don't even think about it as in sight reading, we simple feel the figure.
If you want more discussion , maybe post something of you playing examples, Sugar, Song for my Father or most Lee Morgan or Clifford Brown tunes. Or pick something and I'll try and fit it into one of the many Videos I need to post...
Reg

[DjinnTronic]

Ok, but which way would on play the example I gave (three 16ths triplets followed by an 8th), with the 16th triplet gap (swing) or not (straight) ?
I get a feeling that everyone plays the former.

[Reg]

If your looking for a bigger picture as in a phrase or few bars of music, I play the triplets as one unit and the second 8th as the second part of the swing figure or feel of swing eight notes. If your looking for a breakdown of smaller rhythmic figures as in the Three 16th note triplet followed by 8th note, I swing them all... there are gaps as far as attacks between all notes, how you handle those gaps... and accent the attacks is much of how we imply swing feel. If you played the first three of four attacks swing and were able to play the last attack straight... I don't think any one would really hear, depending on tempo. If you were playing in a section, who's ever playing lead would imply phrasing etc...
Here's an old post from a different thread, standard practical group... or something like that, guys pick tunes and someone makes a sample track, we play through, discuss etc... great thread... but is good example of swing feel, My playing sort of sucks, but the feel is good, check it out I use that standard figure many times, and the tempo is slow... Reg

YouTube Video

[DjinnTronic]

Thanks so much!

[JakeAcci]

Originally Posted by DjinnTronic

Ok, but which way would on play the example I gave (three 16ths triplets followed by an 8th), with the 16th triplet gap (swing) or not (straight) ?
I get a feeling that everyone plays the former.

I suppose that I'd want that fourth note to still feel like an 8th note upbeat in swing feel. But haven't thought about it that much - when you listen to Charlie Parker some of this stuff starts to fall naturally...I have a transcription I did of Confirmation sitting in front of me, within it a lot of times a full beat gets divided as any of the following:

3 8th trips

4 16th notes

3 16th trips and 1 8th note

2 16th notes and one 8th note, or the reverse

somehow it all swings, because remember that swing isn't just about the division of the 8th notes.

and honestly in jazz, the rhythms tend not to be as precise as you are talking about - but they are more precise than amateurs often play them, oddly enough!

[DjinnTronic]

Originally Posted by JakeAcci

I suppose that I'd want that fourth note to still feel like an 8th note upbeat in swing feel. But haven't thought about it that much - when you listen to Charlie Parker some of this stuff starts to fall naturally...I have a transcription I did of Confirmation sitting in front of me, within it a lot of times a full beat gets divided as any of the following:

3 8th trips

4 16th notes

3 16th trips and 1 8th note

2 16th notes and one 8th note, or the reverse

somehow it all swings, because remember that swing isn't just about the division of the 8th notes.

and honestly in jazz, the rhythms tend not to be as precise as you are talking about - but they are more precise than amateurs often play them, oddly enough!

So how does Parker play the 4 * 16ths/beat ? How do you make them swing in another way than the 'swinging 16ths Swunk' thingie ?

And what about the 2 * 16th and one 8th ? If the 16ths arent straight or triplets , then what are they ? Irrational in betweens (polyrhythmic) ?

The thing is, for the moment I'm working on Ted Greene's Solo lines, so I have no accoustic reference, just the notes on paper. Whenever there are 16ths thrown in which aren't triplets I'm wondering as how it's supposed to sound, as there are several ways to interprete them.

[JakeAcci]

(bullets added)

Originally Posted by DjinnTronic

1. So how does Parker play the 4 * 16ths/beat ? How do you make them swing in another way than the 'swinging 16ths Swunk' thingie ?

2. And what about the 2 * 16th and one 8th ? If the 16ths arent straight or triplets , then what are they ? Irrational in betweens (polyrhythmic) ?

3. The thing is, for the moment I'm working on Ted Greene's Solo lines, so I have no accoustic reference, just the notes on paper. Whenever there are 16ths thrown in which aren't triplets I'm wondering as how it's supposed to sound, as there are several ways to interprete them.

1. Well, on a medium swing or uptempo, the difference between 'swung' 16th notes and straight is damn hard to hear and play. At like 100bpm it's no big deal, but at 200 bpm and higher those 16ths are probably just going to be played however they can be played. I think at a faster tempo, 4 16ths notes in one beat is just about cramming 4 notes into the beat, there isn't going to be sort of triplet implications that you get with the 8th notes.

Related to that, you might notice that on faster recordings, the 'bounce' of the swing on the 8ths starts to disappear, as properly doing the 'spang-alang' thing at 300 bpm just becomes a physical impossibility for most, or at best it just becomes more subtle.

2. Well again at a quick tempo the difference is going to be quite subtle. When I'm practicing this stuff slowly I will straighten out that rhythm.

The funny thing is that at a normal swing tempo if you really wanted two 16ths plus an 8th to sound like swing it would just be more practical to notate it as 3 8th note triplets, so the last note arrives on the third partial of a triplet, as is implied in swing feel.

3. Honestly in that context -assuming we're talking about swing tempos where the lines are mostly 8ths but have some 16ths thrown in - I would just play the short groups of 16ths "straight" while practicing and as the tempo is increased you don't have to think about it as much. Remember that a good swing feel is probably more about the accents than it is about the exact subdivision of the rhythms. (Sonny Rollins just as one example...)

But on another note you might want to consider something about what you're doing: 16ths and triplets are just as much a part of the vocabulary as anything else; if you listen to coltrane, bird, rollins etc, you'll hear plenty of it. There's plenty of audio reference available as to how the old greats would rhythmically manipulate this thing we call swing feel. Honestly I feel like you get a much better understanding by going to those recordings and analyzing a few phrases rather than trying to get a consensus on the technically appropriate way of interpreting these rhythms. Make sense?

[Reg]

Swing is all about feel... right. It's not a mechanical system that makes you become a great swing player because you can notate what swing feel could look like on paper, or explain verbally. Generally it's not the details that make what you play become swing feel... it's more of the general shape, your use, or balance of use of swing feel. As I was trying to explain... when you play a two or four bar phrase of music. It's the overall feel, not for example, how you swing the second 16th note of a single turn or triplet. It's the feel of the phrase. Think of a basic steady quarter or eight note swing feel... now think of how your inserting more rhythmic figures to add interest or make phrase more fun to play... or for whatever reason. How you balance the use of those figures is much more important than the details of how you swing the individual 16th etc... The phrase is more important than the individual notes... to a point. These are all discussions as to...is what your playing... worth playing.
If you post some phrases...as I said I'll gladly read through with a few example of how one might imply swing feel... might help...Reg

[DjinnTronic]

Thanks again to both of you for your thoughtful replies. Obviously I have to lift the correct articulation from recordings...and yes, it's about feel etc., but nonetheless it has to be brought down to mathematics at some point- at least for the sake of exercise.

For now I just stick to swung eights and play the rest as written. Oh, and I most often practice at around 75 bpm , nice and cheesy (as I've said I'm working on Ted Greene's Solo method vol1 so everything sounds still very much like elevator music so far), so this single 16ths triplet gap is very noticeable. I start to get the hang of it though...

oh, and I still like to play three sixteenths for the same lenght as the first swung eight as well...I guess that would be a mini 3:2 intermezzo (three 16ths:2 *8ths triplets) ...damn, here I go again, Ok, I'll shut up now and just play my guitar!

[JakeAcci]

Yes at 75bpm things are quite different than 150

I think it's cool to practice these things for accuracy at slower tempos, but of course I agree with Reg that it's going to be about how the whole phrase sounds together....and what kind of sound or feel you're going for. Martino's 8ths sound different than Coltrane's sound different than Birds etc etc

[czardas]

I don't get this dotted eighth-eighth triplet concept at all. If you mean a dotted eight followed by and eighth in the space of quarter note, then that would be a quintuplet. Whatever sub-division you use, be it commensurable or not, the important thing is that both the pulse and melodic accents are clear to the listener - otherwise it don't swing.

[Reg]

Originally Posted by czardas

I don't get this dotted eighth-eighth triplet concept at all. If you mean a dotted eight followed by and eighth in the space of quarter note, then that would be a quintuplet. Whatever sub-division you use, be it commensurable or not, the important thing is that both the pulse and melodic accents are clear to the listener - otherwise it don't swing.

Hey czardas... It's dotted 8th and 16th or it's a 8th note triplet notated as quarter and an 8th. Both subdivisions of quarter note that try and notate swing feel... Obviously there not right, but are what has become accepted practice, and your point about the pulse and accent pattern is what it's about in almost all styles of music...

[czardas]

Originally Posted by Reg

Hey czardas... It's dotted 8th and 16th

Perhaps I misunderstood. If the above subdivision is grouped as a triplet, I would find that completely confusing. I have also never seen it in any score. It would appear to me to be incomensurable.

The syncopated rhythm of a dotted 8th note doesn't strike me as being swing, but I dunno!

[Reg]

Originally Posted by czardas

Perhaps I misunderstood. If the above subdivision is grouped as a triplet, I would find that completely confusing. I have also never seen it in any score. It would appear to me to be incomensurable.

The syncopated rhythm of a dotted 8th note doesn't strike me as being swing, but I dunno!

You need to get out more... Those are the standard two... two notations for trying to get non jazz musicians to play with a swing feel.
Their both sub-divisions of the beat, in this example we're talking about eight note swing feel...
1) dotted 8th and a 16th.... which equals four 16ths which is 1 beat
2) using triplet notation... one quarter and a 8th which is one beat

This is very basic notation... nothing tricky. When you have jazz players, you simply say or write swing 8ths. I find that most classical or non jazz players can cover swing feel well enough and if you need the real thing... hire real jazz players... Reg

[Richb]

Yep, I have also seen (shudder) charts written in 12/8 (!) to simulate a "swing" feel....the depths of depravity know no end....

[czardas]

Originally Posted by Reg

You need to get out more... Those are the standard two... two notations for trying to get non jazz musicians to play with a swing feel.
Their both sub-divisions of the beat, in this example we're talking about eight note swing feel...
1) dotted 8th and a 16th.... which equals four 16ths which is 1 beat
2) using triplet notation... one quarter and a 8th which is one beat

This is very basic notation... nothing tricky. When you have jazz players, you simply say or write swing 8ths. I find that most classical or non jazz players can cover swing feel well enough and if you need the real thing... hire real jazz players... Reg

Yeah that's old hat.

It's when someone says "dotted eight & eight" triplet feel (=> basic swing), my mind goes into meltdown. I see swing as either on or near the triplet. I don't get a swing feel from divisions of four - it's too straight. I'm also inclined to write straight eighths and the performer should know how to make it swing. I don't hire players BTW. Classical players are really bad with rhythm anyway. Jazz players are better - take it as a compliment.

[JonR]

Originally Posted by DjinnTronic

Thanks again to both of you for your thoughtful replies. Obviously I have to lift the correct articulation from recordings...and yes, it's about feel etc., but nonetheless it has to be brought down to mathematics at some point- at least for the sake of exercise.

Well, you could slow a track right down and analyse exactly how what fractions of a beat each of those 16ths takes up. But then you're likely to find it's different every time - although it will no doubt average out as straight 16ths, no swing.
But really there's little point in any such exercise. (Ie, I've never done it myself. If I see such notation, I go straight to the track and check how it sounds - without slowing it down. I might practise the phrase slower, but only to the point where I can squeeze all the notes in, convincingly. I'm not counting...)

Originally Posted by DjinnTronic

For now I just stick to swung eights and play the rest as written.

Good idea. But a better idea is to play it as it sounds (on the original track).

Originally Posted by DjinnTronic

Oh, and I most often practice at around 75 bpm , nice and cheesy (as I've said I'm working on Ted Greene's Solo method vol1 so everything sounds still very much like elevator music so far), so this single 16ths triplet gap is very noticeable. I start to get the hang of it though...

At 75, it will indeed be very noticeable.

As JakeAcci says, at fast tempos the triplet feel of swung 8ths starts to disappear anyway - they become straighter. (Only quite slow swing approaches true triplet value. And even there, players will move those 8ths around a little. Triplets are as much a straitjacket as equal 8ths. You do hear pretty accurate triplet rhythms in blues shuffle - but that's different from swing.)

Originally Posted by DjinnTronic

oh, and I still like to play three sixteenths for the same lenght as the first swung eight as well...I guess that would be a mini 3:2 intermezzo (three 16ths:2 *8ths triplets)

Don't even go there...
There are some Parker solos where I've seen triplet 16ths notated (3 in the space of an 8th note, usually alongside an 8th note rest). But - at tempos over 200 - this is an approximation at best of what was actually played.

Originally Posted by DjinnTronic

...damn, here I go again, Ok, I'll shut up now and just play my guitar!

Good plan.
Really, the best advice is NOT to read jazz notation too literally, and only treat it as (at best) an aid to listening. There's no substitute for absorbing jazz rhythms from listening and copying by ear.

[mattymel]

i would forget about what the "correct" way to play swung 8th/16th notes is as there is no such thing other than NOT SWINGIN.

even that is debatable depending on who you ask.

trying to think about it as notation is bound to make you sound stiff. just try and figure out a Wes solo or whoever you hear as "swinging".

[JakeAcci]

"Stiff" is an extremely subjective term.