Sweet smooth bouncy swing when improvising.

[emanresu]

Do you have it and how did you get it?

By "do you have it", I mean that "you're happy with your swing" when improvising.

[mr. beaumont]

I like to think I do. Its something I actually think I'm decent at.

The answer? Charlie Christian.

[RLetson]

Not that I solo, but I'm old enough that swing was part of the social-dancing musical environment. So was rock and roll, but my cohort crosses that cultural boundary. I suspect that dancing helps get swing into your body, and from there it's in the music-making. Mine, anyway.

[pamosmusic]

I think I do?

A few things I practice very deliberately … slurring into downbeats and accent patterns.

Then just listening to loads and loads and loads of jazz.

[rpjazzguitar]

I recall listening to the Make Believe Ballroom on the radio in the family car in NYC in the 50s. Maybe there.

Do I have it? Yes, at times. It requires focus or I can drift away from it.

[emanresu]

For years and years I've improvised with swing, it does get more comfortable and confident and accurate and reliable.
But it has been only fine. But just fine is not good enough.
Lately I went all-in with simple exercise to get the groove going before even touching a standard. You know, short phrase or
a bit of scale - repeat it until it gets really groovy and starts to bounce. This feeling carries to the improvisation
later on. But the funny thing was - I can't figure out good notes fast enough when soloing anymore.
It is very very strange. Like I have no brain-time left to figure out phrases that talk with each other. The solo "feels"
good (good enough now, I'm happy), but tells nothing ...
Anyway, been doing this for only a few weeks now, thats a bit too short for this experiment. Still hopeful.

[equenda]

It is not easy to give a precise definition of "Swing" and in fact many have different opinions about it.
Personally I realized that to play with "Swing"..... you have to try not to play with "Swing".
This tip (I don't remember the exact words) comes from the great Bruce Forman.
I keep this suggestion very much in mind and in fact I try not to play with "swing".....because the risk is playing a "Tarantella" which is a rhythm from the popular tradition of the city of Naples.

Another very important thing is that Swing depends on speed. On slow and medium tempos all the great Jazz musicians play with swing. But when you exceed 200 BPM of metronome the swing tends to disappear.....and when you play a song at 300 BPM the swing does not exist and it is only possible to play straight eight notes.

Ettore - Quenda.it - Jazz Guitar - Chitarra Jazz

[nevershouldhavesoldit]

On slow and medium tempos all the great Jazz musicians play with swing. But when you exceed 200 BPM of metronome the swing tends to disappear.....and when you play a song at 300 BPM the swing does not exist and it is only possible to play straight eight notes.

The really good players are probably playing with “swing” at any tempo. But hearing the very slight rhythmic fluctuations that we call swing gets harder as the tempo increases. I suspect that the millisecond differences in note duration are simply too short to identify at breakneck speed.

[pamosmusic]

The really good players are probably playing with “swing” at any tempo. But hearing the very slight rhythmic fluctuations that we call swing gets harder as the tempo increases. I suspect that the millisecond differences in note duration are simply too short to identify at breakneck speed.

Seriously doubt this.

(Or at least I doubt there are rhythmic differences any more pronounced than random differences between subdivisions of a rock player playing ostensibly straight eighth notes at a fast tempo.)

i think in general, “swing” gets conflated with a rhythmic adjustment of eighth notes, when the rhythmic adjustment is just a component of swing (and maybe the third or fourth thing down the list, at that).

lots of people play pretty straight and swing like crazy.

Even more people stretch their eighth notes and swing like a pile of dusty bricks.

[ruger9]

I have it, I always have I think. And I think it comes from being raised listening to old big band records... all that music swung. Even without Charlie Christian involved; I have all those great horn lines and melodies burned into memory from birth. Even before I "got into" music, I was steeped in big band.

[dasein]

I think the word I'm hung up on is "bouncy." Does bouncy just mean it feels good? Or is it describing the feel more specifically?

There's a range in jazz re: how even your 8th note lines feel. Guys like Charlie Parker, Coltrane, Bud Powell, Rollins have very even 8th note feels. Guys like Wynton Kelly are less even, it's what I would think of as a little "bouncier."

I prefer the more even feel and it's what I personally shoot for, but I'm not going sit here and say that Wynton Kelly is doing it wrong.

[pamosmusic]

I think the word I'm hung up on is "bouncy." Does bouncy just mean it feels good? Or is it describing the feel more specifically?

There's a range in jazz re: how even your 8th note lines feel. Guys like Charlie Parker, Coltrane, Bud Powell, Rollins have very even 8th note feels. Guys like Wynton Kelly are less even, it's what I would think of as a little "bouncier."

I prefer the more even feel and it's what I personally shoot for, but I'm not going sit here and say that Wynton Kelly is doing it wrong.

No idea, but a word I’ve used before is “buoyant.”

Bass players in particular, drummers too, you really can feel like a swing is lifting you if it’s really working. And I don’t really associate that with anything rhythmic. Bass, for example, playing mostly quarter notes.

[RLetson]

Isn't "swing" a matter of where the notes are placed? I'm familiar with the dotted-eighths explanatioan, but the rhythm-section players who taught me would talk about playing behind or ahead of the beat, of leaning in or leaning back. And I suspect that metronomic regularity doesn't swing, no matter what the time values of the notes on the score are. I've watched workshop teachers try to get beginners to feel and perform swing, and it always seems to come down to a body-based feel. (I suspect that it also helps to play for dancers--their feel feeds back to the players.)

I watched a Hawaiian formally-trained university teacher do something similar in a slack-key class full of non-Hawaiian kids--there was one Hawaiian student, and he asked her to mimic the way she would walk across the beach wearing flip-flops. She did so, and he told the rest of the class, "That's the feel you want."

[mr. beaumont]

"Bounce," yeh, that can mean a lot of different things...

Since players all swing differently, my guess is the OP--talking about swing that's both smooth and bouncy-- it comes down to articulation and the use/placement of triplets...

[joe2758]

Practicing 3 against 4 for a long time answered this same question for me when I was asking it.

[dasein]

Isn't "swing" a matter of where the notes are placed? I'm familiar with the dotted-eighths explanatioan, but the rhythm-section players who taught me would talk about playing behind or ahead of the beat, of leaning in or leaning back. And I suspect that metronomic regularity doesn't swing, no matter what the time values of the notes on the score are. I've watched workshop teachers try to get beginners to feel and perform swing, and it always seems to come down to a body-based feel. (I suspect that it also helps to play for dancers--their feel feeds back to the players.)

Beat placement is definitely part of it, but there's a lot of variance there as well. There are lots of players who play behind the beat, and a lot of players who play more on top of it, and they both swing. Then there's someone like Louis Armstrong, whose beat placement was so insanely precise that he could effortlessly change it in the middle of an idea -- I don't know any other jazz musician who had the same ability to take a simple idea and play it in such a way that even professionals would struggle to mimic it correctly.

You are definitely onto something that there's a "feel" aspect to all this. There probably is a precise way to quantify all this, but the simplest way for a practitioner to actually learn it is to listen and imitate until it's something they can just feel and hear. It's like an accent -- native speakers can instantly tell when someone is not a native speaker, even if they can't fully explain what that difference is like a linguist could.

Practicing 3 against 4 for a long time answered this same question for me when I was asking it.

This is definitely another "secret." I don't know anyone who put in the time to master this who didn't immediately sound better.

[ruger9]

Am I the only one who thinks that while "swing" can be written in notation, that different players playing that same chart will swing better and worse than others? And a computer can play the notes perfectly placed as written, but will that swing? And/or are there humans who could swing it more? (and I'm not talking about today's AI advancements, that's a whole 'nuther ballgame)

I hesitate to say "it's a feel thing", because that always draws fire from some, for some reason (maybe some people like to reduce everything to "data"? IDK)... But... it's a feel thing.

Just think of it in regards to singers... Billie Holiday or Adele or whoever can swing it, and that can be written down, but does that mean someone singing that notation will be able to swing it like Holiday, simply because they place the notes right? I say no.

[pamosmusic]

Am I the only one who thinks that while "swing" can be written in notation, that different players playing that same chart will swing better and worse than others? And a computer can play the notes perfectly placed as written, but will that swing? And/or are there humans who could swing it more? (and I'm not talking about today's AI advancements, that's a whole 'nuther ballgame)

I hesitate to say "it's a feel thing", because that always draws fire from some, for some reason (maybe some people like to reduce everything to "data"? IDK)... But... it's a feel thing.

I mean … I don’t think it can be written.

[ruger9]

I mean … I don’t think it can be written.

Well, with the talk above about beats and placement of triplets and such, it seems some think it can be? And there are certainly plenty of transcriptions of swinging solos... Unless we are defining swing differently.

I think swing is something you know when you hear it, and some people do it better than others inherently. Similar to people who can't dance because they "ain't got no rhythm" LOL.

[pamosmusic]

Well, with the talk above about beats and placement of triplets and such, it seems some think it can be? And there are certainly plenty of transcriptions of swinging solos... Unless we are defining swing differently.

The triplet thing is real at certain tempos, but that feel straightens out at higher tempos, so can it be written at … say 180 bpm?

That rhythmic component is also only one part. Accenting certain parts of phrases or rhythmic patterns … are those hat accents or something else? And syncopations, rhythmic placement of slurs. All that stuff. Just the placement of the quarter not against the beat. There are so many components and it’s so widely variable.

And sure … loads of transcriptions of swinging solos and loads of YouTube videos of people playing them note for note and not swinging even a little bit.

I don’t think there’s anything wrong with saying it’s about “feel.”

Theres loads of technique involved in painting (cue Jeff), and people should absolutely be taught that technique. But it’s hard to predict whether some combination of elements in the hand of a certain person will come together on the canvas. I’m not sure there’s any algorithm that could do that for us.

[emanresu]

I don't have time for reading throughly atm.

Bouncy swing - the feel, yes. Bass players are most addicted to it. But the same thing can be used with any instrument for sure. More subtle.
It feels like... you start to feel it in you and it becomes the primary driver. Takes over. The result is very accentuated syncopation.
And heavy undisputable confidence of them notes even if its not 100% accurate all the time.

If AI could do it some day, I'll quit music and move to another country. Norway. And work as oil changer for old cars.

[emanresu]

Well, with the talk above about beats and placement of triplets and such, it seems some think it can be? And there are certainly plenty of transcriptions of swinging solos... Unless we are defining swing differently.

I think swing is something you know when you hear it, and some people do it better than others inherently. Similar to people who can't dance because they "ain't got no rhythm" LOL.

This thought reminds me of "having to dance" vs. "can't help but dance" type of situation.

Some music makes you move, some situations require you to make you to move as you're "dancing" despite not feeling it at all.

Same with learned swing (which I've done for many years) - got to make the triplets, got to accent the right one, got to make it all accurate. but meh.

I feel.. I mean observe, that I can make my fingers do the swing with a lot of practice, but this gets me less than half way to happiness.

[jameslovestal]

[emanresu]

Cute!

[ruger9]

I'd love to hear a computer "read" that score and then play it.