I think i finally figured out how to swing

[joe2758]

So for a while I played the doop dee doop dee doop rhythm for my eighth notes (like everyone when they start). Then I started mixing that with straight 8ths. Then I attempted to lean way back, but then I realized I was just dragging. So sometimes I think I swung, but it wasn't something I could consciously do.

Today I was playing single notes and decided I would try this: I played a swing ride symbol in 4/4 (100bpm) on drum genius. I locked in on the upbeats and just played those for a few minutes. So I'm thinking why do the people that swing the most seem like they're playing straight? Then I realized if I play the down beats precisely in the middle of the swung upbeats I can swing like mad (on one muted string). it's hard to do, but at least i think i have something i can practice

[MarkRhodes]

Video or it didn't happen! ;o)

Seriously, I would like to hear an example.

[christianm77]

So for a while I played the doop dee doop dee doop rhythm for my eighth notes (like everyone when they start). Then I started mixing that with straight 8ths. Then I attempted to lean way back, but then I realized I was just dragging. So sometimes I think I swung, but it wasn't something I could consciously do.

Today I was playing single notes and decided I would try this: I played a swing ride symbol in 4/4 (100bpm) on drum genius. I locked in on the upbeats and just played those for a few minutes. So I'm thinking why do the people that swing the most seem like they're playing straight? Then I realized if I play the down beats precisely in the middle of the swung upbeats I can swing like mad (on one muted string). it's hard to do, but at least i think i have something i can practice

I’d like to hear an audio of that. If I’ve understood you right, this is my understanding of swing too.

(Triplets and quarters are still placed on the beat.)

OTOH If I play straight over the top of swing locked into the downbeat, it can sound really cool (Prez does it for instance) but it can also sound like implied double time.

Generally I teach and practice singing or tapping the upbeats swing and straight, and then playing lines with an accented upbeat (to start) - this seems to make the placement more intuitive. At no point should the student try to swing with the right hand.

[christianm77]

[Freel]

I think I talked about this recently, although I said something like.

You want to embody the groove and focus on where you LIFT your foot, ie synchronise with the ups not the downs.

Brazilian music is similar, all the energy is on the last quaver (if you are feeling two to the bar like a Brazilian).

You lift your foot crisply and with energy and as near as you can exactly with the drummer's anticipations and then let it fall when it feels good.

For guitarists a good way to practice this is to pick a track you like at a moderate tempo and play along tapping every beat with the right foot but also every anticipation (where the swing is ) with the left, and you'll need to lift the left at a particular point and also lift the right precisely as the left drops, so it is real practice in quadrilaterally embodying the time feel. Play all upstrokes anticipating every quaver as even as you can with the drummer (and your left foot taps) then let the pick fall for the downbeats WHEREVER feels good.


I did a lot of this with this guy for inspiration. Not that I swing or anything but I've played a lot of classical guitar and need to watch for sliding back into unrhythmical habits.

I find I get lots of ideas from drummers these days. The drumeo videos can be excruciatingly unmusical though and I wouldn't necessarily consider all of their interviewers to be musicians.

[joe2758]

At no point should the student try to swing with the right hand.

really? that’s what i was doing when i figured it out; literally right hand picking on a muted string. then i was able to translate it to scales and even with slurs because it was in my ear

ill chck out that vid later, and hopefully record what i was doing.

[joe2758]

i watched the video, the last bit is exactly what i’m talking about

[voxss]

classical musicians will never swing..A lot of classical musicians, when they try to play jazz, think you have to "swing" on every single note. You don't. When you really listen to Miles Davis or Gil Evans, it's often quite rhythmically straightforward. "Swinging" is much more complex. Sometimes it might mean laying back on the beat, playing relaxed and lagging behind; sometimes it might mean playing slightly fast, finishing your phrases too early. And that's something you can't train anyone to do

[christianm77]

really? that’s what i was doing when i figured it out; literally right hand picking on a muted string. then i was able to translate it to scales and even with slurs because it was in my ear

ill chck out that vid later, and hopefully record what i was doing.

I meant try and articulate the right hand notes as an inequality. There is no technical difference between playing straight and swing, because as swing feel gets fast, it straightens out. Obviously you can accent the upbeats, or slur upbeat to downbeat etc.

[christianm77]

classical musicians will never swing..A lot of classical musicians, when they try to play jazz, think you have to "swing" on every single note. You don't. When you really listen to Miles Davis or Gil Evans, it's often quite rhythmically straightforward. "Swinging" is much more complex. Sometimes it might mean laying back on the beat, playing relaxed and lagging behind; sometimes it might mean playing slightly fast, finishing your phrases too early. And that's something you can't train anyone to do

That's not true, it's a cop out. I can improve someone's swing feel. I've done it for a few of my students, and I'm getting better at it.

Just because something is very complex and nuanced doesn't mean you can't teach it. It does mean you have to have an in depth understanding. If people on this forum spent 25% of the time they spend analysing harmony talking about the details of phrasing they would have a toolset to learn and teach it.

Swing isn't a binary thing. Swing feel is like any aspect of jazz, something you have to work on, and it deepens and broadens over time, a large set of skills. It is complex, but it can start simply.

You can improve someone's swing feel in a matter of weeks by pointing out pitfalls and suggesting helpful practice routines. And you know what? It works.

All this behind the beat/on top of the beat stuff is based on (IMO) an incorrect emphasis on the beat. The beat is somewhat malleable in jazz, but it's not always our primary concern. Instead - the upbeat has tremendous structural importance in jazz, and that's where the quick gains are to be made early on. With classical musicians just as much as jazz musicians. It's about learning to place it consistently at all tempos.

There's loads of brass tacks things you can do. Learning how to correctly place a swung push, play a displaced quarter triplet or lock into the upbeat of a ride pattern is essential real world stuff that will help your feel and swing vocabulary. Line construction should follow the rhythmic language, it's a waste of time working without it. But a well constructed jazz line will often have the swing baked in.

[Freel]

classical musicians will never swing..A lot of classical musicians, when they try to play jazz, think you have to "swing" on every single note. You don't. When you really listen to Miles Davis or Gil Evans, it's often quite rhythmically straightforward. "Swinging" is much more complex. Sometimes it might mean laying back on the beat, playing relaxed and lagging behind; sometimes it might mean playing slightly fast, finishing your phrases too early. And that's something you can't train anyone to do

I can't unpick all of that but would advise that A Counsel of Despair is actually a promising position, the only way is up from there.

D.

[christianm77]

i watched the video, the last bit is exactly what i’m talking about

I won't even sulk that this is what I've been talking about on JGO for ages and no one's paid me a blind bit of notice :-)

[ronjazz]

Classical musicians swing like crazy, by the way. The Berlin Phil playing the Bartok Concerto for Orch under Monteux is BURNING.

[joe2758]

I meant try and articulate the right hand notes as an inequality. There is no technical difference between playing straight and swing, because as swing feel gets fast, it straightens out. Obviously you can accent the upbeats, or slur upbeat to downbeat etc.

oh i see what you mean

[christianm77]

Classical musicians swing like crazy, by the way. The Berlin Phil playing the Bartok Concerto for Orch under Monteux is BURNING.

I think early groups - like the Orchestra of the Age of Enlightenment - often have a very strong sense of groove.

Sometimes classical musicians say thing like 'I have no sense of rhythm or groove' - but they do - a classical one. I mean I have no idea how rubato works, and am an amateur at working with a conductor. So *shrugs*

Rhythm is expressed differently by different cultures. My wife is a classical musician, loves Chick Corea playing jazz, but can't stand his phrasing on Mozart.

[joe2758]

I won't even sulk that this is what I've been talking about on JGO for ages and no one's paid me a blind bit of notice :-)

yeah, but isn’t that like your whole thing? i.e. you talk on and on about it for 15 years then one other person mentions it and it becomes a 10 page thread. it’s really pretty hilarious.

in all seriousness ive learned a metric shit ton from your posts

edit: and then everyone ignores or argues with you on said thread lol

[christianm77]

yeah, but isn’t that like your whole thing? i.e. you talk on and on about it for 15 years then one other person mentions it and it becomes a 10 page thread. it’s really pretty hilarious.

in all seriousness ive learned a metric shit ton from your posts

edit: and then everyone ignores or argues with you on said thread lol

Haha, of course. What I am learning from this is no-one values advice they haven't paid for. Which is fair enough. But I like to enthuse about my findings and things that I find useful.

Anyway thanks for the kind words :-)

[mr. beaumont]

So seriously, not shitposting...

Do you guys feel there's a "ideal" way to swing?

[Freel]

So seriously, not shitposting...

Do you guys feel there's a "ideal" way to swing?

Everyone finds it easy to listen, everyone feels good in their body, noone is too stiff and noone is moving jerkily , everyone finds it easier to do the stuff they've been shedding without tightening up, everyone is smiling at the end of a piece, solos have more structure, technique isn't an issue, people have a shared experience (ie NOT the soloist gritting his teeth and the rhythm guitarist smiling), noone went for a drink till the end, everyone had better tone, no incontinent noodling at the end, because noone really felt the structure and nothing felt finished. Wrong notes felt good and behaved by resolving in no particular hurry, noone reset their downbeat to a clumsy syncopation, noone tried to play a fast line that lost the time as they wandered around chasing their tail, noone resolved never to attend that jam again, no guitarist pushed two and four ahead of the beat making everyone in the room feel ill.

That kind of thing.

D.

[christianm77]

So seriously, not shitposting...

Do you guys feel there's a "ideal" way to swing?

Good question, there are many different ways (but as far as I can hear they all seem to honour the upbeat.)

For instance, Barry Harris's swing feel is my model, but I think Wynton Kelly's swing while completely different is equally amazing.

[ragman1]

Joe -

Can you sing 'Here we go round the Mulberry Bush'? That's swing. 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' is straight. Many, many nursery rhymes bounce along in swing. Bet you did it as kid without thinking about it.

I'm NOT insulting you, I'm serious!

[pcsanwald]

Good question, there are many different ways (but as far as I can hear they all seem to honour the upbeat.)

For instance, Barry Harris's swing feel is my model, but I think Wynton Kelly's swing while completely different is equally amazing.

For me it's interesting and instructive to listen to swinging players that push the bounds of what's possible: For me, Horace Silver is at the extreme end of the "swing 8th" perspective and somehow pulls it off; whereas Billy Higgins' ride cymbal is the opposite, almost straight.

I definitely agree this stuff is teachable and rhythmic feel can be improved a great deal, I've personally improved a lot and have seen many other musicians vastly improve rhythmically as well. As with anything, the first step is developing sensitivity to the nuances of the style: if a musician can't hear and identify whether someone is on top of the beat or behind the beat, and how they are subdividing, then learning to hear that stuff is the first step. it's really not different to other kinds of ear training; when I first started playing jazz, some chords would just sound like an unidentifiable soup of sound to me, but over time, I learned the individual flavors and can now hear things in a way I couldn't when I was younger.

[joe2758]

So seriously, not shitposting...

Do you guys feel there's a "ideal" way to swing?

No. I figured out a way that I couldn't do before and I was excited about it.

Edit: sorry this was short. I read it as shitposting anyway lol. there may be ideal swing to a listener. ?dexter gordon for me

[joe2758]

Joe -

Can you sing 'Here we go round the Mulberry Bush'? That's swing. 'Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star' is straight. Many, many nursery rhymes bounce along in swing. Bet you did it as kid without thinking about it.

I'm NOT insulting you, I'm serious!

Yeah rag I call that the doop dee doop dee doop rhythm and that gets old pretty quick. That rhythm is locked in with the ride cymbal on down and up beats. You can also lock in with just the down beats and play straight so that the up beats do not line up, I think that's what Christian was saying Lester young would do. The way I'm talking about is locking in with the swung up beats, and playing straight so the down beats do not line up-- and I think of dexter gordon here

[joe2758]

There's varying degrees of doop dee doop which is probably mostly determined by the drummer, then the soloists pushes and pulls against that established doop dee doop in different and unique ways. I learned a new way that sounds cool