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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2008-11-08 17:48
The band I'm playing with has been rehearsing a piece called "A Tribute to Glenn Miller", which is an arrangement of a handful of tunes he was famous for. At one point the conductor instructed us that bars of 8th notes, though written as even 8th notes, were not to be played evenly. She didn't specify how they were to be played beyond that.
It did seem as though many in the group understood this just fine, but I didn't (and don't). It may be because I'm fairly new to the group, but it's more likely because I'm pretty clueless about jazz.
It seemed like many of the other musicians were playing the passages as dotted 8ths and 16ths. Or maybe some were playing a triplet pattern, two tied plus one. There seemed to be some differences, and maybe some other people were as clueless as I am.
If there's some global convention as to rhythm patterns in 8th note passages in jazz, or in Glenn Miller music, why isn't the music written the way it was intended to be played? And how is the rhythm supposed to go?
I probably will ask the conductor to clarify, but I'm curious to see if people here have a consensus about this.
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Author: Bob Phillips
Date: 2008-11-08 17:53
Uneven 1/8ths, as you have described is called "swing," and may be thought of as either dotted 1/8 + 1/16 or as triplets with the first two tied. Just a gentle syncopation. Common practice in most big band music (typically stuff for 4 each saxes, trumpets, 'bones and rhythm). In case even 1/8ths are called for, the chart will usually have written in "Even 1/8ths."
HOWEVER, it is important for all players in soli passages to use the same rhythmic pattern. FOLLOW the leader.
Bob Phillips
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Author: NorbertTheParrot
Date: 2008-11-08 17:58
In Swing music, like Glenn Miller, the 8ths often need to be "swung". 8ths that are not swung are called "straight eighths".
This is a similar concept to notes inégales in baroque music, though whether swung rhythms actually derive directly from baroque performance practice is debatable.
The correct rhythm is not "dotted 8ths and 16ths". Neither is it "a triplet pattern, two tied plus one".
The correct rhythm is .... swung eighths. It's a matter of feel as to how inégales the notes should be. As the song title has it: It don't mean a thing if it ain't got that swing.
Some information can be found in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swung_note.
Post Edited (2008-11-08 17:59)
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-11-08 18:18
Unfortunately the only surefire way to learn jazz rhythm is to listen. Stravinsky discovered this when he tried writing jazz-inspired works before ever hearing jazz performed (having only read the sheet music). They were great music but didn't sound anything like jazz.
Just listen to enough old Glenn Miller tunes and you'll get it. Try this one for starters. Pretty much the whole song would be written with plain old 8th notes on the page, but that's not what it sounds like at all:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bR3K5uB-wMA
Basically, in swing rhythm, you sort of "hang on" to the normally-accented 8th note (which is usually the first note of a pair of 8ths) and the other 8th note is sort of an afterthought and gets shortened. It's neither a dotted-8th-16th nor a tied triplet figure, but it's closer to that than to straight 8ths. Sort of a "doo-ba doo-ba doo-ba" type of rhythm. The main thing is not to sound forced.
Post Edited (2008-11-08 18:23)
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Author: brycon
Date: 2008-11-08 18:19
Swing rhythm MAY BE dotted eighth and sixteenth, but this is only in very few occasions. Duke Ellington's band sometimes swung this way as well as many of the early New Orleans jazz musicians. Swing rhythm MAY ALSO BE triplets, but this is usually in something like a shuffle.
The reason music is not notated in dotted rhythms or triplets is that it is a pain to read. Some musicals I've played are notated this way, and it is quite an annoyance.
Philip, there is no universal swing rhythm. Be skeptical of anyone that says this is correct or this is incorrect. However, there is a very, very simple solution to your problem: Buy some Glenn Miller records and play along with the band. There are many different swing feels, and the only way to play a composer's music is to listen to how he/she swings.
Norbert, I'm not sure about swing being related to baroque music. One would have a very difficult time arguing that African Americans living in New Orleans were well versed in baroque music. Perhaps it is debatable, but it is at best a losing debate.
Post Edited (2008-11-08 18:40)
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2008-11-08 18:28
Norbert: "The correct rhythm is not "dotted 8ths and 16ths". Neither is it "a triplet pattern, two tied plus one". The correct rhythm is .... swung eighths. It's a matter of feel as to how inégales the notes should be. "
This is a problem (for me.) I read the cited Wikipedia article, and that wasn't very definite either. I guess I pretty much don't feel swing. What swings? A pendulum swings perfectly evenly.
I'll fit in with what the others in the group are (mostly) doing, but what that feels like to me is uncomfortable and imprecise. That may improve, we'll see.
Thanks Norbert et al.
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Author: mrn
Date: 2008-11-08 20:00
Listen to lots of swing/big band music over the next few days, and it will start to sound normal. I promise!
Swing is not so much a rhythm itself as it is a way to use rhythm to emphasize notes instead of just sound intensity. That's one reason why there's no one correct swing rhythm. Sometimes you swing more. Sometimes you swing less. Fast runs of notes you often don't swing much at all because they would sound too jerky if you did.
It sounds like a regular rhythm pattern because swing is usually dance music and dance music needs a regular beat to it, but don't be fooled. It's not as regular as you might think.
Take the first bar of Chattanooga Choo-Choo, for instance. It's three 8th notes, with the last one tied. Yet, the first 8th note is the longest, the second one is short, the third one is longer than the second but not as long as the first, and the last one is, well....tied over, but it starts just a hair late.
Pendulums swing evenly, but swing dancers do not. When you dance swing, you shift your weight onto and off of different feet within the space of a beat. This creates a sort of natural tension and unevenness between the rhythm of the foot movement and that of the weight shift, which causes the dancers to "bounce" in a way that resembles the swing rhythm in the music.
Post Edited (2008-11-08 20:05)
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2008-11-08 20:02
Swing quavers (8th notes) are best thought of and played as 2/3-1/3 if you're new to playing Jazz and Swing.
Writing it all out in 12/8 is tiring, and also very tiring to read. So seeing all the quavers as equal is much easier on the eye but playing them swung is normal, provided the rhythm section is playing swing quavers.
Loosen up and go with the FEEL, but don't over-read the music (play neither straight nor dotted quavers) otherwise it can all sound really stiff. You all have to do the same thing otherwise it's like coal falling down the stairs when people are placing the 2nd half of each beat in different places.
Think of a Limerick and the third line of which is your basic swing quaver rhythm. Go all "Lar-dy dar-dy" and play the quaver rhythms like that.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: ww.player
Date: 2008-11-08 21:34
This is a very complex topic and books have been written on the subject. Swing varies from song to song, style to style, and player to player. No two people would swing the same phrase exactly alike. Yes, it is inexact, but that's on purpose. Jazz is about creativity, individuality, and freedom of expression, not accuracy or the pursuit of perfection.
Some good general guidelines:
1) Most jazz sounds best swung in a triplet (2/3-1/3) pattern. Dotted eighth/sixteenth sounds stiff for most styles.
2) Swing articulation also really, and I mean really, varies from player to player and style to style. However, typically, the off beat note is tongued and slurred to the downbeat note unless the line shape would indicate otherwise (and it often does). Examples of exceptions would be accented notes or top notes in a phrase on a downbeat that would need to be tongued. Some jazz players will only ever tongue offbeats while others will tongue every single note, only varying the intensity of the tongue. Most players will put a combination of tongue and breath accent on the offbeat notes. So, there is no "proper" way to articulate. BTW, I tell my students to think "hou-da, houda, hou-da" when trying to learn how to swing and it seems to work well for most of them.
3) Generally, the faster the music, the less it is swung rhythmically. Most players will play very fast pieces (fast cut time) with straight eighths and rely on the jazz articulation and phrasing to create the swing feel. Some players do try to keep the swing rhythm at all tempos, but it does sound very labored and forced to my ear at very fast tempos.
4) As said before, jazz is a language all its own and you must listen to it to have any chance of grasping its subtleties.
Finally, I would recommend just trying to relax and have some fun. That's kind of the whole idea behind swing, anyway.
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Author: dile
Date: 2008-11-08 23:33
Philip,
see this, that's swinging! Papa Jo Jones.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz-CAWD0OYg&feature=related
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2008-11-09 02:49
Wow - there's more to this topic than I'm going to quickly get. Topics in general seem more that way as I age . . .
Thanks all, you've helped me understand, and I'm grateful. Dile, that Papa Jo Jones video is way over my head. Which is good for me, probably!
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Author: clarnibass
Date: 2008-11-09 06:15
The length of the 8ths is pretty like what have been written. Some people actually measured the exact length of the 8th notes of some players in history, it's different for different players. But the length of the notes is only a part of it, even 8ths can still have swing for example. It's possible to analyze it to death but I learned it the same way other suggested, just listening to tons of jazz. Check out this link for example.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LHFn0vHF6-c
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Author: DougR
Date: 2008-11-09 14:08
Actually, I have a little trick that MIGHT be helpful here. When I started playing in a rehearsal band, about 150 years ago, it was led by an old-school musician/bandleader who'd come up in the 30s and 40s and who (seeing that we were all at different levels and awarenesses about big band music) insisted that the best way to develop a swing feel was to have a little mechanical metronome track running in your head in the background as you played, and the pattern for the metronome was (it's helpful to think of this in a nice medium walking tempo):
Tripl-AND tripl-AND tripl-AND tripl-AND tripl-AND tripl-AND.....
This really works (for ME at least) and I find that accenting the AND helps me keep the beat steady, keeps the beat 'in the pocket,' and gives your line a nice kind of momentum without rushing.
In ballads, the eighths are usually (but not always) played straight but sometimes it's necessary to get a group (or bandleader,depending) consensus.
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Author: DougR
Date: 2008-11-09 14:40
Oh, and one more thing: it almost doesn't matter if section players have an impeccable sense of swing 8ths, AS LONG AS the lead players do (lead alto, 1st trumpet, 1st trombone) and the rest of the band follows their phrasing minutely. The lead player is always who you follow for color, shading, dynamics, rhythmics, articulation, etc., and you can have all the sense of swing-eighths in the world, but if your consciousness isn't also focused on following your lead player, the section will still sound like sh*t.
Pardon me if everyone already knows this, I just thought it was worth reiterating.
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Author: Bill G
Date: 2008-11-09 15:11
Several years ago a scientific journal reported a study of the swing beats of several prominent jazz drummers, determining with mathematical precision their respective allocations of time to eighth notes in their standard swing patterns. The results were presented in percentages and there was a great divergence among them. All were closer to triplet distribution than any other simple notation, but none were precisely that. Moreover, the study revealed that their distributions varied in the plavying of each, depending upon such things as tempo and artistic reaction to the feel of the particular performance.
I wish I could supply the citation. Can any of you help?
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Author: Merlin_Williams
Date: 2008-11-10 15:28
If you're going to make a reasonable attempt at playing in the Miller style, there's more than just the eighth note interpretation to worry about.
You also need to be able to produce a characteristic vibrato.
Listening to the original tracks is the best way to get a feel for these stylistic necessities.
You also need to curb the need to tongue when playing long lines of swing eighths.
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