Thoughts on triplet-swing.

[James W]

neither is anything above an 8th note, i.e. 16ths, 32nds, etc.

You sure about this?

PS he wasn't asking whether triplets were swung. But I see others have already pointed this out to you.

[ragman1]

He asked this in the first post:

how are we supposed to develop a perfect triplet swing feel?

The simple answer to that is that nothing's perfect. So don't bother.

But you'll notice that his question contains the words 'triplet swing feel'. You work it out.

[James W]

He asked this in the first post:



The simple answer to that is that nothing's perfect. So don't bother.

But you'll notice that his question contains the words 'swing feel'. What does that mean in relation to triplets?

He meant the triplet swing feel i.e where the first note is longer than the second, usually notated as triplet crotchet and quavers, but, as I and others have already pointed out, in real life proper jazz and depending on the tempo it's more inconsistent and complex than that - some or even many notes might not be swung in the triplet subdivision. I recommend transcribing and slowing down solos of great jazz musicians, which should corroborate what I and others have said.

Oh yeah and obviously you can swing 16ths and 32nd notes.

[ragman1]

You sure about this?

Not entirely. If a tune was being played very, very slowly and some of the music was written in 16ths there's a probability it would sound a bit odd if they were played straight in a tune which was otherwise with a swing feel.

But I'd probably say that was for reading convenience rather than musical exactitude. Normally, with a swing tune using predominately quarter and eighth notes, if there's a sudden flurry of 16ths it wouldn't be practical to try to swing them, it's going too fast.

[ragman1]

He meant...

I don't do other peoples' interpretations, sorry. Besides, I already covered the dotted-quarter-and- eighth-note-as-a triplet scenario.

You know, if you actually played this it would become immediately apparent that trying to swing the eighth note was stupid, it has no meaning.

[pamosmusic]

I love ragman lecturing on rhythm

[pamosmusic]

I will say again, that conflating “swung” with a lengthening or shortening of rhythm is bad news bears.

Are sixteenth notes lengthened rhythmically or whatever?

depends on the tempo.

Are they swung?

Ask Cannonball Adderly.

[rpjazzguitar]

Thought experiment.

Suppose you ask Freddie Green to record a rhythm track.

You give him the chart and the tempo and he records.

Next, you give him the chart and Walter Page's bass in his headphones. Nothing else.

Next he records just listening to the count-off and the piano.

Then you have him play with the entire band, live.

Does Freddie Green play exactly the same thing each time?

What if you did the same thing with another player? Same thing as Freddie?

If so, then I'll accept the OP's notion that there may be such a thing as an idealized rhythm track. Otherwise, there are just great ones that differ.

What should the OP do? One possibility is to postulate that whatever Freddie does is ideal and work on copping that. Main problem is that sounding like Freddie is not easy.

Another idea is playing along with Sinatra's swing recordings. Those were great bands and great arrangements. Try Sinatra's Come Fly With Me album.

You can hear Freddie really well on this.

[MinToyTot]

Wouldn't it make sense to start by practicing that perfect swing feel first, and only then explore the more personal, stylized versions?

I would consider the ability to play triplet eighths with arbitrary patterns of ties/emphasis—including but not limited to the "1_2 3" at hand—to be quite valuable, but I get the impression that the triplet swing thing has its origins as an analogy for swing feel rather than a definition of it.

[ragman1]

the triplet swing thing has its origins as an analogy for swing feel rather than a definition of it.

That's right. They're not swung per se, they fit with the swing and become part of it.

[pamosmusic]

That's right. They're not swung per se, they fit with the swing and become part of it.

[ragman1]

I would consider the ability to play triplet eighths with arbitrary patterns of ties/emphasis—including but not limited to the "1_2 3" at hand—to be quite valuable, but I get the impression that the triplet swing thing has its origins as an analogy for swing feel rather than a definition of it.

Take this. The tune has a triplet every few bars. I don't know if I'm playing them 'perfectly' and I don't care if I'm playing them 'perfectly'. To me, that's all absurd nonsense.

What matters is they swing. I don't even know, or care, if I'm 'swinging' them or not. What matters is the result. If you really want to know what I think (not you personally, MinToyTot), I think it's time someone got a life!

[pamosmusic]

[ragman1]

I've been focusing on improving my sense of time and developing a solid grip on swing feel.
Most advice I've come across suggests learning it from great players—transcribing and imitating their feel. But the challenge is, they all swing differently.
I remember the first thing we learned in jazz history class was that swing is personal—some players have a sharper feel, others a more laid-back one.
Another common tip is to practice with a metronome on beats 2 and 4.


Here's where I get a bit confused:
If we follow those two suggestions—copying different players and using the 2 & 4 metronome approach—how are we supposed to develop a perfect triplet swing feel?
I mean, a clean, idealized version of it. Wouldn't it make sense to start by practicing that perfect swing feel first, and only then explore the more personal, stylized versions?


What do you think?

What I think is, again, very simple. I went back to your first post. And you wrote this:

they all swing differently

So what does that tell you?

It means that unless one is a classical player in, say, an orchestra where everything is played straight and all the relevant instruments have to be rhythmically in sync, that the way one plays these triplets is purely a matter of personal interpretation.

But, you see, the way you're approaching this sounds as though you want a perfect, rock solid, one-size-fits-all, template that you can imitate because then, whatever you do you'll be completely safe.

In jazz there's no such thing. You're looking for completely the wrong thing, So you have to abandon that approach completely. Which means that you have to know the tune very, very well and then play it the way you want to play it. Can you do that?

Don't say you now feel lost, you're lost already! You're confused about which person, or persons, to copy and so you're hog-tying yourself. But actually you are now liberated. You're 100% free to interpret the music your own way. You don't even have to play the triplets exactly as triplets providing they fit with the music. Got it?

If I played that 'All Of Me' clip again I'd inevitably do it differently to that first one. It wouldn't be the same because I'm not following a rigid blueprint.

Forget what you've been told about metronomes and copying others, they're all wrong. The only right way is the way you want to play it. Once you understand that you become a free man and your problem vanishes.

So good luck with it. Way to go.

[pamosmusic]

Dude Ragman

[emanresu]

To Ragman: at this moment, what I want is to be able to play really really evenly.
Thats my AOM after 3 days of tryharding of rounding it up as well as possible. Not happy yet and the lack of confidence is there.
aom.mp3 - Google Drive

[pamosmusic]

To Ragman: at this moment, what I want is to be able to play really really evenly.
Thats my AOM after 3 days of tryharding of rounding it up as well as possible. Not happy yet and the lack of confidence is there.
aom.mp3 - Google Drive

Honestly — have you thought about seeing what your rhythmic feel is like without an instrument in hand? What rhythms do you hear? Do they swing?

You’re playing a lot of notes in that clip and it can sometimes be hard to separate what we can or can’t hear, from what we can or can’t play.

Since yall are playing All of Me, I’ll share this.

Rhythms with All of Me #jazz #jazzguitarist - YouTube

I made this a few weeks ago for a student. I’ve got my right foot playing quarter notes, my left on two and four, and my hands playing the rhythms I’m hearing. So I think you can tell I’m playing the melody to All of Me in the first chorus. The second chorus is improvising over the form.

This is useful because when we have notes at our disposal we tend to play them. When all we have are rhythms we tend toward silence when we can’t think of anything to play. It’s also useful because to play any rhythm you have to be able to hear two rhythms minimum — the rhythm you want to play and the pulse you’re playing it against. Hopefully, eventually, maybe you can hear your rhythm against a ride pattern or a clave or against what the drums are doing more actively but it takes a lot of work and it’s work we tend to ignore.

Eighths v triplets aside

EDIT: no idea why they went up as a “short.” I hate YouTube.

[GuyBoden]

What do you think?

I try playing triplets with the Jazz greats.

Here are Charlie Parker Triplets repeated for 5mins (slowed down).

[GuyBoden]

EDIT: no idea why they went up as a “short.” I hate YouTube.

[pamosmusic]

Once again ... please clarify.

I'm 99% sure that the OP is NOT asking about how to play triplets.

He is asking about how to play *** swing eighth notes *** and asking if it is useful to practice them as they are commonly described --- three triplets with the first two triplets tied together.

This is a very common shorthand for the swing eighth note and you see it on top of beginner/intermediate jazz scores all the time to inform the reader that the eighth notes should be swung, as opposed to straight. You also hear this subdivision in the ride cymbal for any kind of shuffle feel.

The problem is that the swing eighth notes are elastic and don't have any uniform measurement. Ben Webster might play an extremely exaggerate almost dotted eighth sixteenth swing, but Coleman Hawkins might play his eighth notes straight as an arrow at the same tempo. A swing feel has to do with accent patterns, pushing and pulling against the beat, articulation, and yes ... the stretching of that first eighth note. And all of that stuff is dependent on tempo and line shape.

This is not the same thing as asking "how do I play a triplet in a swing feel." Any transcription by any good improvisor will have eighth notes that are presumably swung in some form or fashion, right alongside actual triplets.

[Tone bar]

To Ragman: at this moment, what I want is to be able to play really really evenly.
Thats my AOM after 3 days of tryharding of rounding it up as well as possible. Not happy yet and the lack of confidence is there.
aom.mp3 - Google Drive

Broseph, you need to clarify wtf you're talking about as this thread is going on 3 pages.

Your rhythms sound really clean in this clip. If this is the effect you're going for with the guitaristic fusion feel, I'd say you achieved it. There's a slightly hoaky sound to the divisions, but it's not technically unsound and I don't know if that's what you're going for. Please break down specifically what you're going for with your time feel and rhythms.

[ragman1]

To Ragman: at this moment, what I want is to be able to play really really evenly.
Thats my AOM after 3 days of tryharding of rounding it up as well as possible. Not happy yet and the lack of confidence is there.
aom.mp3 - Google Drive

Hello! Thanks for the direct reply.

I have no magic answer. I'm sure you're as capable as anyone of thinking of little ways to improve it. From a personal perspective I'm not sure I'd improvise over AOM that way but you may want to produce that particular effect. Those triplets run by pretty fast.

I suppose I'm obligated to suggest at least something! There's slowing it down, of course, till it's thoroughly fixed in the fingers and wired into the brain. Three days of repetition would inevitably have done something unless you started out too quickly initially.

Then there's maybe making sure the fingering is the most suitable for it, you know what the guitar's like for fingering.

Personally I find repetition debilitating when learning heads. I don't practice repeating solos but making sure the melody is right always takes a certain amount of time. I can play it well one day but not another. Or dash it off quite happily late at night but not in the daytime, and so on.

The piece you played, though, evidently depends on playing it exactly right every time. But after a while it becomes like repeating your signature again and again, it deteriorates till it's meaningless. You know that one.

So I don't know. I guess you've just got to keep going at it without beating yourself up if it's not perfect every time. Or even a couple of times in a row.

Some people can do this sort of thing in their sleep. Imagine violinists and Paganini's Caprices, and having to do it in public too. Perhaps one needs a special talent for that kind of thing. Holdsworth, Mancuso... some people can do it and like doing it.

I just hope you haven't set yourself too difficult a task. It's certainly not the only way to make good music.

[ragman1]

I'm told Julie Andrews had perfect pitch. Every note was achingly correct, which was why some people found her voice rather irritating. Perhaps a player with metronomically perfect timing would also raise eyebrows, I don't know :-)

[emanresu]

I'm told Julie Andrews had perfect pitch. Every note was achingly correct, which was why some people found her voice rather irritating. Perhaps a player with metronomically perfect timing would also raise eyebrows, I don't know :-)

Like Arnold perhaps : Arnold Schwarzenegger Used To Sing In The Hills of Austria! - YouTube

[emanresu]

Broseph, you need to clarify wtf you're talking about as this thread is going on 3 pages.

Your rhythms sound really clean in this clip. If this is the effect you're going for with the guitaristic fusion feel, I'd say you achieved it. There's a slightly hoaky sound to the divisions, but it's not technically unsound and I don't know if that's what you're going for. Please break down specifically what you're going for with your time feel and rhythms.

Well, I asked about people's thoughs about maybe it could be a good idea to learn to swing with equally divided trpilets first. Like a perfect model. That was the main thing.

That curiosity was triggered one day when I tried for some reason to check if I can play swing with equally divided triplets continuosly.. hm, like 12/8 time signature. And it was just impossible.
I was curious because 12/8 is nothing strange and I should be able to do it. Nope.