The "Swing Feel" Matrix

[RLetson]

I should add that even with instruction from a competent practitioner, there's no guarantee that instruction will take. This is true for any performative skill. When I was teaching writing, it was clear that what I was doing was coaching, and that the final deployment of the technical descriptions and advice takes place on the student side and is a bit mysterious. I know this because I watched myself learn how to write--and to this day (sixty-some years later), I'm better at describing what I've done than at predicting what I will do when I sit down to write a piece. The generating machinery operates largely beneath the conscious mind.

[Beats_and_Guitars]

I should add that even with instruction from a competent practitioner, there's no guarantee that instruction will take. This is true for any performative skill. When I was teaching writing, it was clear that what I was doing was coaching, and that the final deployment of the technical descriptions and advice takes place on the student side and is a bit mysterious. I know this because I watched myself learn how to write--and to this day (sixty-some years later), I'm better at describing what I've done than at predicting what I will do when I sit down to write a piece. The generating machinery operates largely beneath the conscious mind.

I agree this is why I mentioned “things can be taught but not everyone will learn from a specific explanation”. We all learn things differently. When people say “you can’t teach swing” I’d wholeheartedly disagree…we can teach many things but it doesn’t mean the person being taught will get it.


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[RLetson]

I agree this is why I mentioned “things can be taught but not everyone will learn from a specific explanation”. We all learn things differently. When people say “you can’t teach swing” I’d wholeheartedly disagree…we can teach many things but it doesn’t mean the person being taught will get it.

In my end of the biz, we'd say that there are things that can be learned but can't be taught. The teacher's job is to approach that amorphous territory by teaching what can be taught--practical subskills, practice regimens, work habits, ways-of-thinking, and bunches of conventional wisdom and pro tips and exemplars. All with the recognition that not every bit of advice will work for every student. The integration of all that stuff happens inside the student.

[Beats_and_Guitars]

In my end of the biz, we'd say that there are things that can be learned but can't be taught. The teacher's job is to approach that amorphous territory by teaching what can be taught--practical subskills, practice regimens, work habits, ways-of-thinking, and bunches of conventional wisdom and pro tips and exemplars. All with the recognition that not every bit of advice will work for every student. The integration of all that stuff happens inside the student.

I understand. I think with the concept of swinging it doesn’t fall under the category of things that can’t be taught.


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[acoustic_archtop]

I think that's a good qualified premise compared to only saying rhythm is just purely innate. Because you have to be able to feel the swing for it to work. But having it taught effectively can spark that and allow you to feel it. It can be much more difficult without the proper explanation. As everyone knows there's no codified definition of swing. Which I think is extremely destructive since it's more complex than a single variable, but it can absolutely be explained.

well put

[acoustic_archtop]

I understand. I think with the concept of swinging it doesn’t fall under the category of things that can’t be taught.


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Curious, why do you think that?

[Beats_and_Guitars]

Curious, why do you think that?

Swing is a demonstrable aspect of rhythm in music.

Can you play straight 8th notes?

Can you play swung 8th notes and have a “student” repeat the pattern of swung 8th notes along with you? This, in my opinion could be correctly classified as “teaching swing”. Retention of what’s is taught is then left up to the student at that point.

No one comes from the womb “swinging” somewhere along the way it was “learned” whether by being taught to play a specific way or organically through listening. If you can learn something it is also possible to teach it. Now, some people aren’t great at teaching and default to “swing can’t be taught” which is fine that means they just aren’t capable or explaining or teaching someone. It doesn’t change the truth that it can actually be taught.

Conversely if you were to say “not everyone can learn to swing” I might be more willing to agree with that but the statement “swing can’t be taught” is just false.


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[Cunamara]

Swing is a kinesthetic feel rather than a metronomic count. The musicians have to be feeling it to communicate it to the audience (and the audience can tell when the musicians aren't feeling the swing). It's more like a cerebellar brain process than a cerebral one and as a result has a certain elasticity even when it is right on top of the metronomic beat.

I think of it this very oversimplified way. The European classical music time count is like the steps in a dance: 1 (left foot) 2 (right foot) 3 (left foot) 4 (right foot), etc. (obviously I am ignoring the typical classical music 16th note subdivision here). The feet tap the floor in the center of the beat, acting as a metronome. Arthur Murray taught you where your feet went but that's not dancing, is it? Dancing is when you can move and glide through the steps without having to think about where your feet go, focusing on your connection with your partner and the music rather than the steps.

The swing groove is the swing of the hips between the steps, the movement of the center of gravity; the swing of the hip simultaneously anticipates and follows the center of the beat of the foot on the floor. To swing, you have to get your time sense into your body and center of gravity. You have to feel the time structure of the song: a bar, 4 bars, 8 bars, 12 bars, 16 bars, 32 bars. If you're consciously counting your way through a tune, it might be hard to swing.

[RLetson]

As a word guy, I begin to suspect that part of the apparent disagreements here have to do with naming the processes by which skills are transmitted from practitioner to student. The play-along process that Beats describes above is an element of the kind of teaching I'd call "coaching"--the teacher demonstrates (with or without technical commentary) and the student mimics*. This practical part can be supplemented by more abstract or theoretical material--"What we're playing now is straight 4/4. Now we're emphasizing the 2 and the 4. Now we're doing 'swing eighths.' Here is how they are indicated, approximatly, in standard notation." And so on. So coaching generally includes advice on practical matters that can also have technical names, but even there, "do it this way/don't do that" are independent of what the official name of this or that might be. (Though as a word guy, I love me some precise nomenclature.)

Naming of parts is useful, but I confess that to this day if you asked me to produce swing eighths, I couldn't do it. But it you ask me to play a tune as though it were a march and then to swing it a bit, I can produce something appropriate. I "learned" to swing primarily by playing along with swinging players. When workshop teachers attached technical descriptions, it was nice to have names, but they struck me as posterior to getting the feel and getting my body to cooperate.

Knowing-how and knowing-that are not quite the same thing. I can anatomize a sonnet, but that doesn't guarantee that I can write one. (In sixty-plus years of trying, I've managed just one that works. Limericks are easier.)

* Even non-physical skills can be transmitted by a similar process of imitation and iteration--pre-modern teaching of rhetoric started with students copying model texts and then mimicking them with their own efforts. Decades ago, I took a seminar that used a version of this, and even earlier I remember imitating various models in my high-school essays. Unfortunately for my early writing style, many of the models were the blurbs on the backs of paperbacks.

[PickingMyEars]

I guess we're raising the dead again, because here's my 2 cents thrown into the fray.

RLetson brought up a great point about the difference of knowing-how and knowing-that. I'm a word guy as well. Taught English for years and have a healthy bookshelf of philosophy, political theory, fiction, non-fiction, and a bunch of books on pedagogy.

I haven't written my own book yet. One day... I write enough on the internet, for crying out loud!

Knowing how and knowing that can be distilled to knowing and doing. We can know that Charlie Parker played a delayed substitute ii-V with approach notes and color tones. That is knowing harmony. We write essays about knowing harmony here, on Youtube, and in books that could circle the globe. Only a few can CONVINCINGLY play these ideas in the midst of their solo. I'm working on my melodic clarity, as are most of us on the forum. We can fill pages and pages about the how, but when it comes to the DOING--we fall short.

Many of us here say that you can't teach swing, and that rhythm is just a feeling. I heard another Youtuber say the same thing just the other day. Yes, people still say that you can't teach rhythm on the internet--just for the record.

What happens if we stopped analyzing harmony and "felt" harmony through listening and experience? Kind of the reverse of how we talk about rhythm.

What if swing isn't a study limited to the lives of two eighth notes? What if the propulsion and feel of a phrase is a result of rhythmic nuance throughout an entire phrase of music? Count Basie could get his band to swing the hell out of their eighth notes, but what made "Lil' Darlin" wake the dead was how everyone articulated whole phrases.

There's a lot of rhythm that we leave on the table when we study improvisation. You can make the simplest phrase DANCE if you are keyed into that rhythmic nuance. Miles did it. Grant Green did it. Wes did it. Any of our favorites did it--because rhythm became their bread and butter. Intentional rhythm equals musical clarity. Intentional rhythm is what allows a phrase to swing.

Learning more harmony ain't gonna make us magically sound closer to our idols, but placing our ear to the ground and listening to the subtle vibrations of rhythm just might. Rhythm deserves just as much time in the shed as harmony. Rhythm is execution. If we never practice execution--that's akin to a professional high diver sizing up the springboard, but never making the jump. No one wants to hear rhythmic meandering--avid jazz fan or not. Bill Evans and Bill Frisell could subvert our expectations of a groove, but they sure as hell knew how to be intentional with their rhythm.

We've got a good dialogue here, but I just wanted to remind us all that what's said about rhythm and swing should be said about our study of scales and harmony as well. Problem is, if we never talk about rhythm with the same depth as harmony--in any of our circles--how do we learn it? How do we learn what to build into our practice? Listening is a huge part, but what else? Once again, invert what we say about harmony and rhythm--what can and can't be taught. Eliciting knowledge is different than wholly incomplete pedagogy.

[acoustic_archtop]

I understand. I think with the concept of swinging it doesn’t fall under the category of things that can’t be taught.


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I think we're being argumentative. ANYTHING can be taught. If you go through the motions of 'teaching' it. But, hypothetically, if 100% of the time students aren't learning it, is it still being taught?

You can guide someone who's never heard swing before. Maybe point them in the right direction but, giving someone a technical breakdown of swing won't work. If I had to teach someone to swing, I'd have them listen to tons of swing music and say, now do that. I'd bet that would be tons more effective than having someone READ on how to swing and then try to do it. We're not robots that you can program.

[acoustic_archtop]

Swing is a demonstrable aspect of rhythm in music.

Can you play straight 8th notes?

Can you play swung 8th notes and have a “student” repeat the pattern of swung 8th notes along with you? This, in my opinion could be correctly classified as “teaching swing”. Retention of what’s is taught is then left up to the student at that point.

No one comes from the womb “swinging” somewhere along the way it was “learned” whether by being taught to play a specific way or organically through listening. If you can learn something it is also possible to teach it. Now, some people aren’t great at teaching and default to “swing can’t be taught” which is fine that means they just aren’t capable or explaining or teaching someone. It doesn’t change the truth that it can actually be taught.

Conversely if you were to say “not everyone can learn to swing” I might be more willing to agree with that but the statement “swing can’t be taught” is just false.


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I'm saying you can't teach someone just from a book or something written on how to swing. You have to listen and emulate.

[pamosmusic]

You can guide someone who's never heard swing before. Maybe point them in the right direction but, giving someone a technical breakdown of swing won't work. If I had to teach someone to swing, I'd have them listen to tons of swing music and say, now do that. I'd bet that would be tons more effective than having someone READ on how to swing and then try to do it. We're not robots that you can program.

Im not sure how this differs from teaching anything else.

Modeling is always a tool in the toolkit. It’s often the best tool. Other things benefit more from some supportive analysis. Teaching time feel doesn’t particularly, but I don’t think that makes it all that different from other topics.

You can read and understand theory but only insofar as the music you’re interpreting is written or verbalized. At some point, you can’t “understand” it without hearing it and hearing “what it does.” And what it does will be very subjective to the listener.

Said and done, I’d spend more time talking about theory than I would rhythm if I were teaching it, but that’s a minor difference in quantity. Not so much a major difference in kind.

[Beats_and_Guitars]

I think we're being argumentative. ANYTHING can be taught. If you go through the motions of 'teaching' it. But, hypothetically, if 100% of the time students aren't learning it, is it still being taught?

You’re having an issue with the word “taught” and or “teacher”. If 100% of students don’t learn the material that’s not on the teacher. Yes it’s still being taught. ….

think about your statement “is it still being taught” you’re putting the responsibility on the teacher rather than the person that’s learning the material. The information is being conveyed but we don’t know if the “student” is capable of grasping the material.

If all of my calculus students are 2 years old am I still a teacher even if none of my students graduate? Absolutely. You can’t put the owness on the teacher just because the students aren’t understanding the material being taught. This is a massive fallacy.


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[pamosmusic]

You’re having an issue with the word “taught” and or “teacher”. If 100% of students don’t learn the material that’s not on the teacher. Yes it’s still being taught. ….

think about your statement “is it still being taught” you’re putting the responsibility on the teacher rather than the person that’s learning the material. The information is being conveyed but we don’t know if the “student” is capable of grasping the material.

If all of my calculus students are 2 years old am I still a teacher even if none of my students graduate? Absolutely. You can’t put the owness on the teacher just because the students aren’t understanding the material being taught. This is a massive fallacy.


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Well this is kind of a weird comparison.

If you're hired to teach Calculus and are presented with a room full of two year olds, I would say that you're doing your job and that you've been put in an impossible situation, but I would definitely not say that you're teaching.

As a music teacher, I get to teach pretty much whatever, so I can evaluate the student in front of me and go from there. In that situation, if the student isn't learning it's (at least partly) on me. Of course some students just aren't interested in practicing or whatever, so there's that. But If I have someone who wants to put in a half hour a day and they're not getting better, it might be me.

My old guitar teacher used to say that you're not teaching until someone doesn't get it. Until then, you're just lecturing.

[Christian Miller]

I think we're being argumentative. ANYTHING can be taught. If you go through the motions of 'teaching' it. But, hypothetically, if 100% of the time students aren't learning it, is it still being taught?

You can guide someone who's never heard swing before. Maybe point them in the right direction but, giving someone a technical breakdown of swing won't work. If I had to teach someone to swing, I'd have them listen to tons of swing music and say, now do that. I'd bet that would be tons more effective than having someone READ on how to swing and then try to do it. We're not robots that you can program.

I've seen that exact experiment myself, and yes it works. If you get a bunch of teenagers to learn to play something simple like Perdido by ear from the recording, it does indeed swing much more than if they read it off the page.

I mean, hold the front page, or what? Story of the century!

And yet, it does seem that so often in jazz education we go back to bits of paper. I remember this sort of jazz theory tome that got passed out to the students in the same class when the topic turned to improvisation. I remember thinking - surely it's possible to get a bit more of that ear learning into improvisation at the early stages? Why not work on melodic variation or riffs? Why do we have to start with scales with polysyllabic names?

I don't understand how anyone is expected to swing when you've been taught music in this way. It's amazing that people do at all quite honestly.

[Beats_and_Guitars]

Well, of course it's going to seem that way if you choose a daft example.

It’s only a daft example to you because you don’t understand the analogy. Regardless of the retention ability of the student the teacher is still teaching. Whether or not the student is capable of retaining the information the information is still being presented. His question was “is it still being taught” I was addressing that particular question and the answer is of course it’s still being taught. “Teaching” in it of itself has nothing to do with the students ability or desire to learn the material being taught it’s still teaching.


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[Strat-itis]

well put

Thx

Modeling is always a tool in the toolkit. It’s often the best tool. Other things benefit more from some supportive analysis. Teaching time feel doesn’t particularly, but I don’t think that makes it all that different from other topics.

No, you can model time feel, why wouldn't you be able to? Also replying to the other people on the thread posting this notion. Just because a problem doesn't have a single tiered solution doesn't mean there's no scientific principle to be deduced.

You can read and understand theory but only insofar as the music you’re interpreting is written or verbalized. At some point, you can’t “understand” it without hearing it and hearing “what it does.”

There's always this, it goes for any topic in music. Theoretically modelling a concept helps a lot, but only if that's bridged and used for understanding the topic naturally how it sounds musically in real life.

And what it does will be very subjective to the listener.

Also this. Musicians swing different ways. The person's style influences the parameters of swing, but the underlying principles still hold.

Also worth noting is that swing isn't only rhythmic. Phrasing affects swing, you need proper groups of notes, short and long. Only short or only long doesn't swing. And your harmonic choices affect swing. It can't be all dinky and lame and swing etc.

The OP had it pretty close but some things are missing.

Here's my current understanding of swing, please critique it:

1. Time Feel: The foundation of Swing is the Triplet Feel (or Shuffle), meaning straight 8th notes will simply not swing, regardless of articulation.
2. Solo Articulation: To make a solo line truly swing, the melodic accentuation must be placed on the Upbeats (the 'ands'—e.g., 2& / 4&).
3. Groove Foundation: The emphasis on the Backbeat (specifically on the Downbeats of 2 and 4) is primarily the function of the Rhythm Section (drums, bass, comping instruments). This provides the pocket and the main rhythmic pulse, but it's not the primary articulation rule for the soloist. (I always thought the $2/4$ accent was the key, but I've learned that's likely the case for Rock/Pop.)

1. Yep, 8th notes are swung, but that's only in a perfect world in med up and up tempo tunes where that alone will create swing. For med and slower you have to subdivide to faster rhythms for the tune to swing. 16ths and 32nds are straightened out.
2. Upbeats. Yep, great one. Swing is fundamentally an oscillation. It needs the downbeat of the bass and the contrasting upbeat of the melody line. Jazz is syncopated music so emphasizing the upbeats is the default.
3. Backbeat. Yep, also fundamental.
4. A missing characteristic is flux. You can't just play straight and have it swing, there must be some constructive interfere where the different parts 'rag' against each other. This must be intentional and not just screwing up the time.
5. Another missing element is melodic/phrasing and harmonic choices need to reinforce and boost the momentum for it to swing.

[Christian Miller]

It’s only a daft example to you because you don’t understand the analogy. Regardless of the retention ability of the student the teacher is still teaching. Whether or not the student is capable of retaining the information the information is still being presented. His question was “is it still being taught” I was addressing that particular question and the answer is of course it’s still being taught. “Teaching” in it of itself has nothing to do with the students ability or desire to learn the material being taught it’s still teaching.

If I go and talk to my cats about Keirkegaard for an hour am I conducting a tutorial? Or, am I in fact mental?

This whole idea of teaching is divorced from any real world context. You are not going to be in the situation of teaching calculus to 2 years olds.

Teaching is a job that people do in the real world and there's a lot to it. There are professional expectations, and teachers do get assessed.

[pamosmusic]

Thx

No, you can model time feel, why wouldn't you be able to? Also replying to the other people on the thread posting this notion. Just because a problem doesn't have a single tiered solution doesn't mean there's no scientific principle to be deduced.

Maybe read it again?

Pretty sure you think I said the opposite of what I said.

[pamosmusic]

If I go and talk to my cats about Keirkegaard for an hour am I conducting a tutorial? Or, am I in fact mental.

This is a trick question because it depends on whether or not your cat has the necessary foundation to understand and appreciate Kierkegaard.

Nice try, Miller.

[Christian Miller]

This is a trick question because it depends on whether or not your cat has the necessary foundation to understand and appreciate Kierkegaard.

Nice try, Miller.

TBH I suspect the cats find my thesis banal and derivative

[Strat-itis]

Maybe read it again? Pretty sure you think I said the opposite of what I said.

Right, I misunderstood that you asserted this:

Modeling is always a tool in the toolkit. It’s often the best tool.

But I still don't get what you were qualifying with this. Oh well. You mean musically integrating as opposed to raw modeling?

Other things benefit more from some supportive analysis. Teaching time feel doesn’t particularly, but I don’t think that makes it all that different from other topics.

[pamosmusic]

Right, I misunderstood that you asserted this:

But I still don't get what you were qualifying with this. Oh well. You mean musically integrating as opposed to raw modeling?

Just that modeling is probably the best tool in the tool kit for most things, when it’s done well.

But that some things are easier to explain or analyze than others. I think there’s probably more to analyze about time feel than we usually think. But when you try and explain time feel, you usually end up in a quagmire. Just sing and listen and sing and listen is usually the move there. You get a little further thinking about harmony, but still need to sit and listen at the end of the day.

So I was just saying that rhythm is taught differently most of the time but it’s not like some foreign mystical concept that is fundamentally different than other musical skills.

[Beats_and_Guitars]

Just that modeling is probably the best tool in the tool kit for most things, when it’s done well.

But that some things are easier to explain or analyze than others. I think there’s probably more to analyze about time feel than we usually think. But when you try and explain time feel, you usually end up in a quagmire. Just sing and listen and sing and listen is usually the move there. You get a little further thinking about harmony, but still need to sit and listen at the end of the day.

So I was just saying that rhythm is taught differently most of the time but it’s not like some foreign mystical concept that is fundamentally different than other musical skills.

I completely agree with everything said here. “Listen and play” can be achieved via a record or with someone in real time showing what swung 8th notes sound like. Either way the learning is on the listener.

I will also say that expressing swing within the context of meter can vary widely. One can literally express swing with just one correctly placed note in the context of the beat. This kind of understanding may take someone years to understand but it doesn’t mean they can’t be made to understand the concept of swung 8th notes.

Play these swung 8th notes along with me, this is the sound of swing.

It’s not as complicated as people want to make it.


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