Author: redwine
Date: 2007-09-25 15:39
Hello,
With no disrespect intended toward tictactux, his definition is the text book definition of swing vs. straight eighths. However, when musicians play that way, they sound like "professor long-hair", which reminds me of one of my jazz teachers who said often "it's alright if you have your doctorate degree, as long as you don't play like you have your doctorate degree". It also brings to mind the famous quote from Louis Armstrong when asked to define swing (jazz), who said "if you've got to ask, you're never going to know".
The concept is rather indefinable. Because I play both classical and jazz, I feel a "swing" in classical as well as jazz music, but they are both played completely differently. If I had to define swing, I would say that the swing occurs more from accents than lengths of notes. There's a fuzziness about that too, though, in that the way you attack, combined with the accents, combined with subtle changes in lengths of notes really creates a swing.
Jazz initially was an aural tradition, so listening a lot will definitely be your best teacher, combined with playing it.
Knowing almost nothing about baroque performance practices, did Bach swing? I would think yes. Did Mozart swing? Yes. Did Artie Shaw swing? Yes. Did Louis Armstrong swing? Yes. Would I like to hear a concert of that quartet? Yes.
Ben Redwine, DMA
owner, RJ Music Group
Assistant Professor, The Catholic University of America
Selmer Paris artist
www.rjmusicgroup.com
www.redwinejazz.com
www.reedwizard.com
Post Edited (2007-09-26 01:43)
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