'Straight and Late'

[brent.h]

This post is inspired by a conversation Cliff and Christian had in another thread and a much older thread started by Joe2758. I was curious to see what 'straight and late' looked like in my DAW (Logic). If you're not familiar with DAWs or don't like DAWs, this post might not be for you.

Here was my process.

i) I set my grid to an 8th note subdivision and wrote in two midi notes - one note on the downbeat of beat 1, one note on the upbeat of beat 1. Like Cliff mentioned, if we could draw a line from beat 1 to beat 2, the first note would be played at the '1' mark, and the second note would be played at '1.5' mark, right in the centre of the line.

ii) Then I set my grid to a triplet subdivision, selected both notes, and dragged both of them till the second note lined up with the last triplet subdividing line.

- By selecting both notes and moving them at the same time, the space between the two notes remains fixed and constant that mimics 'even playing'.

- By lining up the second note with the last triplet subdivision, I'm trying to mimic what happens when our upbeats 'lock in' with a drummer's ride cymbal.

Now, the second note is being played at the '1.66' mark.

But what about the first note? Assuming we're playing evenly & perfectly, then mathematically, this note is now being played at '1.16' mark. Visually on my DAW, this first note doesn't seem to line up with anything.

iii) So I changed my grid yet again. This time, I set the grid to a sextuplet subdivision. Now, the first note at '1.16' falls exactly on the second sextuplet gridline. The second note at '1.67'? It falls exactly on the fifth sextuplet gridline.

iv) I continued putting more notes on the 2nd and 5th sextuplets subdivisions. The sequence of notes was a simple major scale with a b6. I set the metronome to click on every beat at 180 and hit play.

Look, I know this is all mechanical, theoretical, ideal, stiff, how-dare-you-brent, etc. but funnily enough that scale sounded like it swung. And this was without me giving the midi notes any accents by changing their velocity (attack and loudness). So yeah, some food for thought. Maybe now we can give non-musicians or non-jazzers a clear and direct answer as to what swing is lol - making your eighth notes sound like you're playing on the 2nd and 5th sextuplet of a beat.

[pauln]

Back in March I was following a similar idea and posted this. I used "draw".
The rows from top down are:
Down beats
Up beats
scale - marked at 1/3 beat
1/3 beats numbered
1/6 beats ("up beats" of the 1/3 beats)

[Christian Miller]

The process recommend is

Practice accenting the upbeats. You can do the slur thing if you like.

Most people don’t play the upbeats strongly, because they don’t hear them strongly. So what feels like an accent will most likely even you out.

The lack of due emphasis given to the upbeats is also what results in a fake, jerky swing, because people make the upbeat notes too short.

Now, practice singing the swing upbeat accurately at your chosen tempo

Once those things are solid, practice singing the upbeats and then playing your stuff. Don’t try to swing - and pay attention to the upbeats.

This usually sorts people out very quickly.


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[kris]

After one beer I'm a little late and after two I'm very late.
I checked it works.