 The Clarinet BBoard
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2017-06-25 04:27
Playing swing style eighth notes seems clear enough for pairs or consecutive multiples of eighths, and clear enough in the case of a dotted quarter followed by an eighth. Is there also a standard convention for an eighth on the beat followed by a quarter, i.e., syncopation? This is fairly often part of an eighth-quarter-eighth rhythm, and presumably the final eighth of the group is in swing style, similar to a dotted quarter followed by an eighth. But what about that leading eighth? Should it be shortened a bit from nominal written value, or played as written, or what? Context is community band.
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Author: brycon
Date: 2017-06-25 04:42
For eighth-quarter-eighth, rhythm's swung, of course. The quarter's usually shortened with a "tongue stop" and the eighths are played long ("doo-dat-doo doo-dat"). But if the phrase ends on the last eighth, it's also tongue stopped.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2017-06-25 17:03
The 2nd eighth of a pair (the off-beat) is later than straight eighth (i.e. swung) whether it's tied or not. Swung eighths are essentially treated as though the meter were triple - 6/8, 9/8, or 12/8 - so syncopated eighth-note sequences (whether or not the syncopated eighths are combined into quarters) would be played as though they're quarter, then eighth tied to the next quarter in x/8 meter.
Some articulations can alter this and call for even - non-swung - eighths, but those are conventions you have to learn "on the job."
Karl
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-06-25 18:28
The offbeat swung quavers are usually the accented ones instead of the ones on the beat - it's what gives swing its drive.
Swing quavers are like triplet quavers and are divided 2/3-1/3 each beat instead of 3/4-1/4 as dotted quavers are (or 1/2-1/2 which are straight or equal quavers).
One thing that gets my goat is when the drummer is setting a nice swing going, but the players play straight quavers as the two don't fit.
If you need to write out swing for players with no experience of playing swung quavers, then write their parts out in 12/8. So their swing rhythm will be crotchet-quaver for every beat.
Don't give seasoned swing players music written out in 12/8 as they'll go mental as it makes things look far more complicated than it is. Write everything in 4/4 with straight quavers and write 'Swing' at the top before the tempo or metronome marking and they'll naturally swing them (unless it's Latin, such as a Bossa Nova or Rhumba).
Adding this after the metronome marking will also make things clear: https://musescore.org/sites/musescore.org/files/swing_0.jpg
If you do want straight quavers for a few notes, then either write 'Straight' above them. That's cancelled out by putting 'Swing' when you want swung quavers again.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Philip Caron
Date: 2017-06-25 18:56
Very interesting. I was referring to the rhythm difference in swung eighths, particularly syncopated ones, which Karl described (and not the way I expected - thank you.) The info about articulations, emphasis and notation is all excellent as well.
Notation varies; some music puts the notation Chris linked right in the parts; some music states the word "swing", some music writes out the rhythms explicitly, and some just assumes the musicians know to swing the eighths. One piece with swung eighths also has a couple bars of dotted-eighth & sixteenth rhythm, and to be honest when the band plays it it's hard to say there's much difference :-)
As a classical-leaning person, I tend to prefer the rhythm written as close as possible to the way the composer or arranger wanted it to sound, so it's amusing to learn that seasoned swing players dislike that.
Thanks all.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2017-06-25 19:40
Philip Caron wrote:
> Notation varies; some music puts the notation Chris linked
> right in the parts; some music states the word "swing", some
> music writes out the rhythms explicitly, and some just assumes
> the musicians know to swing the eighths. One piece with swung
> eighths also has a couple bars of dotted-eighth & sixteenth
> rhythm, and to be honest when the band plays it it's hard to
> say there's much difference :-)
>
In my experience arrangers who write out the swing (usually with triplet brackets) are aiming at a school market. Marking the "swing" instruction is often done when something makes the style ambiguous, as in a medley where some of the tunes are jazz-based and others latin or rock.
It's sometimes ambiguous when an arranger uses both a "swing" instruction or triplet notation in one place and dotted-eighth-sixteenth notation in another. Ordinarily that's asking that the dotted rhythms be played "square" (as in a Welk arrangement) in contrast to the swing. But then you have composers like Andrew Lloyd Webber writing "Do You Hear the People Sing" in the dotted rhythm with the instruction at the top of the song to play and sing the dotted figures with triplet rhythm (i.e. swing but without the accent shift). I supposed it's easier to engrave dotted-eighth-sixteenths than mark triplets (although simile would work perfectly well), but even easier would have been to write the song in 12/8 instead of 4/4.
Karl
Post Edited (2017-06-25 19:42)
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Author: Matt74
Date: 2017-06-25 22:46
When I play Jazz I always think of the accents as being the most important thing...
St. Louis Blues: "Dee-DEET, do-dee-DEET, doo-DAA."
Take the A Train: "Dooo-DEE do-ba, doop-bap DEE-dam."
Take 5: "Do-ba-de-ba-DE-ba-da-DAT. Do-da DUM."
My Favorite Things: "Do-Dat-Dat DWEE-dat, do-DAA da-DWE-de-Dwee-dum."
The note values are shortened where they are because of the syncopated accents. Some pianists make this very easy to hear.
https://youtu.be/NTJhHn-TuDY
With eighth-quarter-eighth the most important thing is the phrasing.
I agree that swing eighths are closer to tied triplets, because it's more like a lilt, but it's best not to write it out. It's too subtile to notate. When you are thinking eighths and see something else you get confused. They are eighth notes. Writing anything else makes you think that the accent is always on the beat. Then, when you see actual dotted rhythms or triplets you don't know what the composer wants. I think that if the musicians don't know how to play swing, they can't swing. It's not hard, but trying to get them to do it when they don't know what it sounds like is putting the cart before the horse. It's better to demonstrate than explain.
- Matthew Simington
Post Edited (2017-06-26 05:05)
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-06-26 00:57
Karl wrote:
"But then you have composers like Andrew Lloyd Webber writing "Do You Hear the People Sing" in the dotted rhythm with the instruction at the top of the song to play and sing the dotted figures with triplet rhythm (i.e. swing but without the accent shift)."
That's actually written by Claude-Michel Schonberg - it's more of a 6/8 march if anything, or even a folk song as a lot of folk songs are in 6/8.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: kdk ★2017
Date: 2017-06-26 01:43
Chris P wrote:
> Karl wrote:
>
> "But then you have composers like Andrew Lloyd Webber writing
> "Do You Hear the People Sing" in the dotted rhythm with the
> instruction at the top of the song to play and sing the dotted
> figures with triplet rhythm (i.e. swing but without the accent
> shift)."
>
> That's actually written by Claude-Michel Schonberg
Ah! Yes, I knew that. Brain cramp.
> - it's more
> of a 6/8 march if anything, or even a folk song as a lot of
> folk songs are in 6/8.
>
Well, I know, but why not write it in 12/8? It really isn't connected to Philip's original question, because there's absolutely no "swing" or jazz feeling about it. But it does sort of go to the issue Philip raises later of not writing things as the composer or arranger wants them to be performed.
Karl
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Author: Liquorice
Date: 2017-06-26 02:11
Karl wrote: "why not write it in 12/8?". I certainly can't answer for C-M Schonberg but I can think of one reason: sometimes writing the same rhythm in different ways causes the performer to play them differently. For example, if I wrote 4 repeated quarter note Cs in a 4/4 bar (quarter=100), or I wrote 4 repeated dotted quarter note Cs in a 12/8 bar (dotted quarter=100), theoretically these should sound identical, right? But if you pull out your horn and you play them both, you'll realise that you probably don't play them in exactly the same way. You probably give the 12/8 notes a less pronounced accent, a more gradual taper and possibly less gap between the repeated notes.
I don't know if Schonberg did it intentionally, but if I read dotted rhythms, even if the instruction was to play them as triplets, I may find myself playing them more articulated, with more pointed accents and more march-like, which is exactly how you hear "Do you hear the people sing?" on the recordings.
Subtle gradations of rhythm, articulation and accentuation can make a huge difference, which probably goes a long way to explain why some bands swing better than others?
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Author: brycon
Date: 2017-06-26 03:27
Quote:
I don't know if Schonberg did it intentionally, but if I read dotted rhythms, even if the instruction was to play them as triplets, I may find myself playing them more articulated, with more pointed accents and more march-like, which is exactly how you hear "Do you hear the people sing?" on the recordings.
Subtle gradations of rhythm, articulation and accentuation can make a huge difference, which probably goes a long way to explain why some bands swing better than others?
Yep. And a couple of the main problems with non-jazz players playing swing eighths are 1. accenting downbeats and 2. over-swinging.
A series of consecutive eighths in 4/4 is often beamed as a single group (over the span of two beats). In 12/8, conversely, rhythms are rarely grouped the same way; they most often appear in beat units (quarter-eighth) and therefore lead to more accented beats and plodding swing feel.
Moreover, swing eighths are much closer rhythmically to straight eighths than most non-jazz players realize. The swing feel, of course, lies in the accents. Bop players like Bird and Sonny Stitt played completely straight eighths at faster tempos. And some other, more idiosyncratic players, like Sonny Rollins and Dexter, played straight eighths even at medium tempos. 12/8 encourages a sort of hokey swing feel; probably best for shuffles or something.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-06-26 12:53
I've played all manner of versions of 'Les Mis' from the West End full orchestral to concert band versions and 'Do You Hear The People Sing' has always been a triumphant march with a duple time feel rather than dotted or straight.
Here's one of the various versions I've played (I'm on oboe in this):
https://youtu.be/GlveR2naD8M?t=8m9s
There's a Big Band arrangement of Neal Hefti's 'Girl Talk' https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvYAkxHNrPg where there are two examples at the top of the page explaining how to play the swing rhythm - one of them is written out in full in 12/8 (I think the other is in 4/4 with 2/3-1/3 triplets), but the main body of the piece is in 4/4 with all straight quavers and has to be played swung.
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
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Author: Dibbs
Date: 2017-06-26 17:05
Chris P wrote:
> The offbeat swung quavers are usually the accented ones instead
> of the ones on the beat - it's what gives swing its drive.
>
> Swing quavers are like triplet quavers and are divided 2/3-1/3
> each beat instead of 3/4-1/4 as dotted quavers are (or 1/2-1/2
> which are straight or equal quavers).
>
> One thing that gets my goat is when the drummer is setting a
> nice swing going, but the players play straight quavers as the
> two don't fit.
> ...
Hold on a sec. Listen to this: https://youtu.be/NTJhHn-TuDY?t=184
Oscar Peterson plays straight quavers, Ed Thigpen plays swing. The whole thing swings like mad.
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Author: Chris P
Date: 2017-06-26 18:11
He's playing swing quavers for most of it, but straight quavers in this 2 bar pick-up when the rhythm drops out: https://youtu.be/NTJhHn-TuDY?t=4m15s
Former oboe finisher
Howarth of London
1998 - 2010
The opinions I express are my own.
Post Edited (2017-06-26 18:11)
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