i think i finally figured out how to swing

[mr. beaumont]

OK, a nasty example, if Joe needs a right hand, I need both.

Honestly, aside from the fact it sounds like you're trying to play an arrangement, it swings just fine.

[wzpgsr]

But the spacing is almost dead even, no?

Yeah, I wasn’t disputing that.

[Lionelsax]

Honestly, aside from the fact it sounds like you're trying to play an arrangement, it swings just fine.

Thanks, I should pick the guitar time to time even if I feel naked when I'm soloing.

[Freel]

Joe, I'm not a good example of swinging but you should sing something and play it. That would be natural.
Listen to something, right foot on one, hand clap on two, left foot on three, hand clap on four and sing something.
Things come this way.

Sorry, that was 4 years ago, maybe it's better now or worst.

All sounds Ok to me.

I think that you need to articulate more with your left hand, things start to feel draggy as soon as you shift from rhythm to lead.

Think of it like tonguing, it seems like you are trying to play everything completely legato but I bet if you were to sing those phrases you would have MASSIVE VARIETY of shades of articulation and everything would be NICE. You would easily notice how you were achieving these subtle articulations because your tongue would hit off the roof of your mouth behind your front teeth IN ALL THE RIGHT PLACES, naturally because we have millions of years of evolution hard wired for communication with our mouths.

On guitar you need to let the note go with the left hand and/or use the pick on the string like you would your tongue behind your teeth. This is the real power of scat singing whilst improvising, to get a free ride on the existing mental hardware hard wired for vocal communication and to subconsciously copy with our instrument what comes naturally singing.

I could upload a video with graphs showing this but that would only help people miss the point. They would only imagine they could do it because they found it easy to agree with my postulates. They might then imagine that their playing had been instantly improved because they confused intellectual musing with accomplishment.

Anyway I think your lines are good in the video but there are some things missing from your LH concept which are stopping them from 'singing'.

It's not your fault, noone ever talks about these things outside of good quality one on one tuition, it's hard. And, as well as simply hard, it is thankless because there will always be someone sweeping good advice aside because of the specious authority of latest fad for visual hohum in video edutainment.

People have been swinging just fine for ever, using THEIR OWN EARS. Listen honestly, notice what you don't like and try and fix it.

Sing a phrase with a short section of harmony first time through, lay out next time through, copy the phrase WITH ARTICULATION, lay out and ask yourself honestly 'did I really play what I sang ?.


There is a lot more to answering that last question honestly than note accuracy and timing but I can ASSURE ALL OF YOU, if you miss out on the other things both timing and pitch accuracy will feel off even if they are objectively perfect, as observed by an oscilloscope or waveform.

Here are some of the other things

PITCH
ARTICULATION,soft (LH)
ARTICULATION,soft(RH)
ACCENT,hard,soft,fall,bend,bend flat(string shortening)
DYNAMICS
TONAL SHADING
VIBRATO
EXPRESSIVE CHANGES IN PACING WHILST MAINTAINING CONTACT WITH BACKING

anyway the list is as long as your imagination.

That means there are three options. One, get more and more confused firefighting leaping from one to the other hoping it will magically solve all the others. Two, listen more actively to yourself and the backing and stop falling for click bait, work out a different way to practice and don't expect to find any ONE oversimplistic yet weird and impossibly arcane explanation. Three, cobble together a new stream of consciousness video on youtube where you imagine you are outlining your new revolutionary square wheel building process.

Three will probably be best, put in some weird graphics and gibberish graphs and by no means demonstrate a principle over an actual tune or show any genuine musical development to distinguish one video from another.


D.

[christianm77]

The biggest challenge I find with swinging is playing an upbeat that is both energised and not too early.

Also crisp triplets at all tempos. I suck at that atm.

I do sometimes tend to dot quite heavily but I think that’s ok at medium slow tempos. I know some great players who do it.

Everyone should listen to grant green on Django. No guitarist has ever played a more beautiful slow/medium swing feel. That’s quite straight....

As Pasquale points out slowish tempos like that are hard, you can fake it when it’s fast cos it’s basically straight but relaxed, but so many players go double time or running triplets when the tempo goes below 180ish.

Also they are unfamiliar tempos to many players and they don’t have so much incentive to work on them. These tempos aren’t heard that often at jazz clubs now. They are dancing tempos.

[Freel]

Everyone should listen to Grant Green

YES

Also crisp triplets at all tempos. I suck at that atm.

Learn the afro cuban twelve hit bell pattern.

101 011 010 101
I'ts the first one here.

Sing it and add one note at a time till you are playing a whole bar. You'll stop getting lost in triplets and learn A LOT more besides.

D.

[lawson-stone]

Joe, I'm not a good example of swinging but you should sing something and play it. That would be natural.
Listen to something, right foot on one, hand clap on two, left foot on three, hand clap on four and sing something.
Things come this way.



Sorry, that was 4 years ago, maybe it's better now or worst.

I think this sounds quite good. Your transition to the solo is a little rocky, but once you get settled I like the lines you play, I like the groove, and I think it swings just right.

[christianm77]

YES



Learn the afro cuban twelve hit bell pattern.

101 011 010 101
I'ts the first one here.

Sing it and add one note at a time till you are playing a whole bar. You'll stop getting lost in triplets and learn A LOT more besides.

D.

Yes that’s all great stuff. I’m not really looking for advice here, just sharing my own experiences. I know what I need to practice.

All the concept you have posted is great and I’ve talked about this stuff in the past both here and with students, posted videos and so on, so it’s good to see someone else in basic agreement on many of the fundamentals and not just saying ‘it’s all mysterious and intuitive’, which i regard as unhelpful.

I haven’t commented on it cos I don’t really have a huge amount but to add other than - feel the swing ‘ands’ for every tempo.

You are definitely on the right track and giving good advice IMO.

Incidentally Peter Bernstein (clang!) has a nice way of using that bell pattern to get a fast waltz to feel as a slow swing. Just a matter of reversing what we normally practice for 4/4 swing but unbelievably helpful because fast waltzes are hard. Funny thing is he was singing that pattern, and when I said ‘Afro-Cuban bell pattern’, he didn’t seem to think of it as being that... anyway, probably just played it for years without having a name for it.

For me is mostly an articulation issue and feeling everything in those tricky ‘in the cracks’ tempos. I’m pretty happy with my understanding conceptually and it’s definitely there at some tempos, it’s a matter of getting on with the tidying up.

[Lionelsax]

Thanks for your comments and advice, I really appreciate.
The thread belongs to Joe but I appreciate.
Yes, I'm a bit rocky sometimes, I wanted to "study" rock and roll in a little local classical school and my first music and sax teacher was a jazzer.
In terms of harmony (studies) I'm a Baroque guy (just fundamentals).
So... with all those things, I did what I could.

[christianm77]

Joe, I'm not a good example of swinging but you should sing something and play it. That would be natural.
Listen to something, right foot on one, hand clap on two, left foot on three, hand clap on four and sing something.
Things come this way.

Sorry, that was 4 years ago, maybe it's better now or worst.

I think drum genius is good for practicing along to.

I think basically it’s sound and you have the right idea. I would like a little more consistency in the placement of your upbeats, but not sure if this is a feel thing or technical issues (sorry that sounds like a bit of a burn it’s not intended to be.)

I think it’s good to practice all downstrokes too sometimes.

You tend to rush string crossing like most guitarists. Mea culpa also- this is one issue with my triplets incidentally that I mentioned above. Economy picking is a bastard for that, barre fingerings don’t help either, as if you let barre notes ring into each other sounds a bit messy. I’ve been experimenting with never playing barres in lines, and that might be something to look into.

It’s a bit keen but you could try doing what a teacher suggested and setting the metronome to 1+ and 3+. Try playing just the melody of Tenor Madness with that at first. Kept me busy for a few years lol. Click on 2 and 4 doesn’t always synch with a correct swing feel whereas that will.

When the click is on 2 and 4 the trick is to make the metronome swing.

[christianm77]

Also the sound of that click is horrible to practice with. I advocate something a bit deeper and more pulse like if possible. Wood block is ok, I have that set up on the app Tempo on my phone.

[Lionelsax]

I think drum genius is good for practicing along to.

I think basically it’s sound and you have the right idea. I would like a little more consistency in the placement of your upbeats, but not sure if this is a feel thing or technical issues (sorry that sounds like a bit of a burn it’s not intended to be.)

I think it’s good to practice all downstrokes too sometimes.

You tend to rush string crossing like most guitarists. Mea culpa also- this is one issue with my triplets incidentally that I mentioned above. Economy picking is a bastard for that, barre fingerings don’t help either, as if you let barre notes ring into each other sounds a bit messy. I’ve been experimenting with never playing barres in lines, and that might be something to look into.

It’s a bit keen but you could try doing what a teacher suggested and setting the metronome to 1+ and 3+. Try playing just the melody of Tenor Madness with that at first. Kept me busy for a few years lol. Click on 2 and 4 doesn’t always synch with a correct swing feel whereas that will.

When the click is on 2 and 4 the trick is to make the metronome swing.

Thanks but I don't use barre fingering, the problem is that I've got a classical left hand technique, I use more my fingers than my hand (except my finger tips the rest of the flesh avoid touching the strings) so the strings keep ringing, Nobody taught me how to use a pick, now I usually prefer using fingerstyle technique so I can control extra ringing with my right hand, the classical guitar is my second instrument.
But wait... I don't play solos anymore, I love now combining bass and chords, and you know what ? I use hybrid picking because the bass sounds clearer !!!

What you say about the metronome is true but who said it was locked on 2 and 4 ? Maybe sometimes I felt it on 1+ or 3+, who knows ? Neither don't I.

[Freel]

This is the best example of someone demonstrating their way of working.

Jelly Roll Morton Plays the Library of Congress : NPR

If Jelly don't swing then I don't want to.

You can hear where he places his foot as clear as day, don't know if he is wearing clogs.

You could slow it down and look at the sound wave and draw conclusions from that but please don't tell me about it.

I'm going to listen to every word from the Library of Congress recordings of Jelly Roll, when jogging for the next month. There is a study plan that will definitely be fun and educational and good for me.

If I am a good boy, and I seldom am, I will check which devices for harmonising on the fly he uses with which I am not familiar. I'll assume he is working off I,IV and V.

I know, I know, I'm nearly a hundred years short of hip in my listening. I'll get to new things when I understand the old things reasonably well, might just skip fusion on electric guitar altogether though.

D.

[christianm77]

Thanks but I don't use barre fingering, the problem is that I've got a classical left hand technique, I use more my fingers than my hand (except my finger tips the rest of the flesh avoid touching the strings) so the strings keep ringing, Nobody taught me how to use a pick, now I usually prefer using fingerstyle technique so I can control extra ringing with my right hand, the classical guitar is my second instrument.
But wait... I don't play solos anymore, I love now combining bass and chords, and you know what ? I use hybrid picking because the bass sounds clearer !!!

What you say about the metronome is true but who said it was locked on 2 and 4 ? Maybe sometimes I felt it on 1+ or 3+, who knows ? Neither don't I.

By barring I mean using the same finger for notes on the same fret on adjacent strings. It’s a tricky technique but many players manage to make it sound good on electric.

Classical guitarists (or any acoustic players for that matter) don’t have to deal with the sustain we have as electric players. In fact overring can be desirable on acoustic instruments. So we all have to find a solution. There’s no one pedagogy for this....

[Freel]

Incidentally Peter Bernstein (clang!) has a nice way of using that bell pattern to get a fast waltz to feel as a slow swing. Just a matter of reversing what we normally practice for 4/4 swing but unbelievably helpful because fast waltzes are hard. Funny thing is he was singing that pattern, and when I said ‘Afro-Cuban bell pattern’, he didn’t seem to think of it as being that... anyway, probably just played it for years without having a name for it.

Bell patterns are interesting, it's not impossible someone might generate one from first principles, here they are...

I want all rhythmic motifs native (or SIMPLE) from 3/4,6/8 and 12/16, to be executable in all time signatures, I want a clave that will not prejudice one of these time signatures over another. Ok I'll go to five. Five is 2+3 what's the simplest thing that states five 11010, that is I guess it's simplest thing with two and the simplest thing with three, that should be super asymmetrical in those time signatures. Two fives are ten so I will need another two places to account for, OK that's either 01 or 10

(five group)11010 (another one) 11010, (our last hit to make up the numbers) 10

Take that first hit (just above) as an anacrusis and you get the twelve hit bell pattern (colon is the downbeat)
1:101 011 010 101:

The Venezuelan Waltz is normally felt as a superimposition of 3/4 and 6/8, it is only possible to feel and perform it correctly when you have learned to feel every rhythmic motif equally well from the perspective of every possible time signature. To do that you pick a few challenging bars from a piece in moto perpetuo style in each of those time signatures and play it whilst reciting the clave and tap your foot either 2,3 or 4 to the bar. When you can move between without stalling you are getting there. It's a lot of work but is tremendously freeing, I hear this freedom particularly in Louis Armstrong where the transcriber writes things like, behind the beat, I don't think he is doing that at all I think he is playing with the extra definition that the kind of work I have outlined above aims to deliver.

In general a Venezuelan melody will be constructed on broadly classical lines and will be strongly prejudiced in 3/4 in terms of tension and release, I had a big argument about a transcription for one written in 6/8 on another forum. I don't know where the convention of writing jazz waltzes in the wrong time signature came from but it is a real nuisance. Bireli Lagrene wrote a nice one based on Lauro's Natalia.


Note to Lawson, despite this being a more prosaic and less lyrical post than some of my others I am not sure that I am recommending that you try this at home. But honestly if anyone can get anything out of it I'll be glad because it all took me a very long time to work out. Happy the man who can just do it, not that I've met him.

D.

[christianm77]

I’m sure Peter Bernstein got that rhythm from records and playing with some of the best drummers in the world. Perhaps his lessons with Jim Hall - who knows?

I get the impression he is more interested in the practicalities of things than the names.

[Freel]

I’m sure Peter Bernstein got that rhythm from records .

I got it from the experience of listening to west african drumming and not being able to follow it without having my perception of where the downbeat was (2,3 or four to the bar) flip and leave me all at sea. So I heard the unchanging part and used it as part of my flamenco practice. I then started playing all my classical rep over it (played on a little PC metronome called Weird Metronome) whilst trying to sync my voice to it. I then tried to play the same stuff placing the downbeat in each of the three places regardless of the harmonic rhythm of the piece. I continued this for about a decade and the rest of the post above contains some of the thing I noticed. At some point some nice things happened as a result of all that but wasn't till I had the idea of starting to practice as slow as was comfortable and then slowing down, down, down that anyone else noticed and seemed to enjoy the results.

Lots of people don't need to do these kind of things, I do. I've done lots of other things which I would not recommend to anyone.



D.

[christianm77]

I got it from the experience of listening to west african drumming and not being able to follow it without having my perception of where the downbeat was (2,3 or four to the bar) flip and leave me all at sea. So I heard the unchanging part and used it as part of my flamenco practice. I then started playing all my classical rep over it (played on a little PC metronome called Weird Metronome) whilst trying to sync my voice to it. I then tried to play the same stuff placing the downbeat in each of the three places regardless of the harmonic rhythm of the piece. I continued this for about a decade and the rest of the post above contains some of the thing I noticed. At some point some nice things happened as a result of all that but wasn't till I had the idea of starting to practice as slow as was comfortable and then slowing down, down, down that anyone else noticed and seemed to enjoy the results.

Lots of people don't need to do these kind of things, I do. I've done lots of other things which I would not recommend to anyone.



D.

I think that sort of thing is absolute gold.

The bell pattern thing against straight fours is very satisfying. I haven't tried with lines (or clave) but I probably SHOULD.

Drum genius is fun to muck around with on this. The clave settings are pretty cool. But it's best if you can develop the rhythmic independence to do it by singing..... Think like a drummer!

I'm curious to hear more of your playing now....

[Lionelsax]

The biggest challenge I find with swinging is playing an upbeat that is both energised and not too early.

Also crisp triplets at all tempos. I suck at that atm.

I do sometimes tend to dot quite heavily but I think that’s ok at medium slow tempos. I know some great players who do it.

Everyone should listen to grant green on Django. No guitarist has ever played a more beautiful slow/medium swing feel. That’s quite straight....

As Pasquale points out slowish tempos like that are hard, you can fake it when it’s fast cos it’s basically straight but relaxed, but so many players go double time or running triplets when the tempo goes below 180ish.

Also they are unfamiliar tempos to many players and they don’t have so much incentive to work on them. These tempos aren’t heard that often at jazz clubs now. They are dancing tempos.

Well, it is not difficult to play 3/4 6/8 on a 4/4 without thinking about it.
The more difficult is to make swing 16th notes but I think I failed.
I've tried one day, I'm sorry, there is no guitar but sax, piano and bass guitar, all played by myself.

[Freel]

Go cat go !

Nice.

D.

[Freel]

I'm curious to hear more of your playing now....

I think I have derailed Joe's thread enough, sorry Joe.
If you get up to Scotland Christian let me know, I promise I'll get a new set of strings and there is a great curry house round the corner.

D.

[pcsanwald]

I think that sort of thing is absolute gold.

The bell pattern thing against straight fours is very satisfying. I haven't tried with lines (or clave) but I probably SHOULD.

Drum genius is fun to muck around with on this. The clave settings are pretty cool. But it's best if you can develop the rhythmic independence to do it by singing..... Think like a drummer!

I went to a clinic that Danilo Perez played (actually I played bass for parts of it which was super challenging and fun) and I really am kicking myself for not recording it. He breaks down the "big three" and how it relates to swing time, in a really fun way that involves a lot of group singing, clapping and stomping. Probably one of the best clinics I've ever been to.

It's funny, I feel like there's all the information in the world online, but there's very little of what Danilo spoke about. I really wish I had recorded it or remembered it better.

We also played a couple of his tunes from "children of the light" and "galactic panama", it was really fun despite being very challenging tunes.

[joe2758]

I think I have derailed Joe's thread enough, sorry Joe.
If you get up to Scotland Christian let me know, I promise I'll get a new set of strings and there is a great curry house round the corner.

D.

no worries man you can have it i’m already gone haha

[christianm77]

I went to a clinic that Danilo Perez played (actually I played bass for parts of it which was super challenging and fun) and I really am kicking myself for not recording it. He breaks down the "big three" and how it relates to swing time, in a really fun way that involves a lot of group singing, clapping and stomping. Probably one of the best clinics I've ever been to.

It's funny, I feel like there's all the information in the world online, but there's very little of what Danilo spoke about. I really wish I had recorded it or remembered it better.

We also played a couple of his tunes from "children of the light" and "galactic panama", it was really fun despite being very challenging tunes.

Can remember anything more specific about the rhythms?

[pcsanwald]

Can remember anything more specific about the rhythms?

Yeah so the basic thing was that the "big 3", or counting 3 against a pulse of 2, is pretty common. he started the class doing this by everyone patting quarter notes with their foot, then clapping a 6/8 tresillo pattern (just even triplets, not 3 side of son clave) over top, your basic 3/2. then, he asked us to transfer the tresillo pattern to our feet, and clapping 4 beats on top of the 6 that we were tapping. He then played piano over top of that using the 4 as a pulse to whatever he played (I can't remember). His thing was feeling an underlying 6 when you're in 4/4.

He went a lot deeper but unfortunately since I was also playing I didn't pick up everything he said (we had to play some of his tunes and I was fairly nervous about them, both were quite difficult)