Great video! Actually, we knew about the different swing ratios when I studied back in the early 2000s. But swing is still mostly taught by ear and by imitation
Agreed. It's quite funny that they spent all their time researching that when they could of asked any jazz musician and he/she could tell you in a second. I mean you can hear this stuff when you're playing. It especially noticeable when doing transcriptions as well.
@@DZ-hh5dw I'm sorry, but I find this a bit silly logically. Entrainment is not knowledge. People do all sorts of things everyday that they don't fully understand, yet go through the motions just fine. Data and research is separate from "just feel it!" for sure, but it is another necessary class of information. Think of it as being able "to show how" versus being able "to explain how". Teachers vs doers. There's plenty of room in the world for both approaches.
Thank you for your video essay. Speaking as a jazz drummer (and contemporary composer), we're taught in our lessons, plus it's written in technique books, to tighten up at slow tempi and to even out at fast tempi; it's not just tradition, it's also pragmatic because it gets harder and harder (and sounds stupider) to swing triplets or what-have-you the faster the tempo climbs. I've also heard and read, though I can't remember where (maybe in an old History of Jazz type of book), that West Coast swing was, in the '50s and '60s, generally a little more square than East Coast, i.e. closer to 3:1 dotted eighths and sixteenths compared to 2:1 triplets or 3:2 quintuplets back east. But I can't cite or back that up. Cheers!
Once again you have added to my musical understanding of an aspect of music that I thought I knew. Bravo, Bruce! The last bit about synchronizing the swung notes and letting the on-beat notes fall where they may is ear opening!
I'm very late to this party, but... This explanation makes sense to me - when I was learning to swing as a teenager back in the 80s my teacher did indeed explain it as a slightly squishy triplet feel. But then he said (over and over) it's all about the offbeats and the backbeat. He made me learn all my scales and practice them simply accenting the offbeats. Even without worrying too much about note timing the swing just sort of fell into place naturally. Once you have the whole ensemble locking in on those offbeats the groove takes care of itself. Try it out yourselves, kids!
I am not a musician, but I do dance a little. The reason swing rythm changes seems obvious and natural to me. The tighter the rythm the greater the sense of intent. The looser, the more the sense of play. If you are fishing with a rod and reel, you bring the fish in with the play. When the fish is on the hook you want to reel it in as fast and efficiently as you can. I expect that is what is going on.
Fantastic video, David. Great job of illustrating the nuance that goes in to having a good swing feel. So many great musicians play time differently, and that's why you need to learn solos from records and not just from reading transcriptions. Having the notes and rhythms assigned to a basic notational grid leaves out a lot of criticially important information.
It would be interesting to compare the J-Dilla off-metronome beat making style with deviating from standard notation to "humanize" rhythmics on a micro scale!
There are a few videos on this subject: David Bruce's ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-jPcXABJVjI8.html Adam Neely's: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-9MzKx0fKg5o.html and Slynk's: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3-xIfb9rT_8.html and ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-xFwWEWcFTmM.html
The relationship between tempo and swing makes intuitive sense. If you double the speed both beats must be half as long. However after only a few doubling the shorter beat quickly approaches the shortest note you can play. At this point you can only reduce the of the longer beat. Thus the notes become straighter and straighter. Said another way, increases in tempo reduce the length of the time a long note takes more than the time the short note takes. Thus as speed approaches infinity beat ratio approaches 1:1
One important thing to remember about swinging at fast tempos (>200ish, perhaps?) is that even though the swing ratio drops wayyy down, players still articulate/accent in a characteristically swing way. Emphasis on the off-beat, melodic phrases ending on the off-beat, wind players tongue the off-beat and slur into the on-beat. It can still swing damn hard even if the eighth notes are 1:1.
Bruce, I wanted to let you know, this is a wonderful 😊 video. I am a teacher on Panhandle Tx. I definitely resonated with you talking about being classically taught. However, I had a director that made me think about swing and other styles. I say this because you are right about teachers only teaching 50/50. I wanted to also thank you for your videos, at some point I would love to talk to you and just discuss one of your favorite topics on music. Have a great day sir. Mr. Herbert Herrera.
I've always just found it makes the most sense to think of swing as being 12/8 disguised as 4/4. It confused me when I first heard people explaining swing as long and short notes, as I had simply assumed it was just triplets. Interesting to see that there is actually considerable variation in "swing ratio" in jazz recordings.
I'm reminded of the advice given - straight and late! But - you have to feel the upbeat or it doesn't swing. One exercise I was given about six years ago was to put the metronome click on 1+ and 3+. Tough at first because we are used to synching with the beat in Western culture. I think my upbeat placement has improved over the years. There are a few ways I work on this.
@@crono303 yeah it's a good one. I also like to record myself in a DAW and see how consistent my upbeat placement is... Kind of anal, but it maps into a feeling when you play. You learn to recognise the feeling of actually locking in to the upbeat. I like this because you can be a bit reliant on the click with the other exercise, locking in rather than projecting your upbeats.
There are actually several western music styles with off-grid placements of off-beats. They usually involve "over-dotting", like in funeral marches and Italian opera. I believe studying micro-rhythms in those styles could be equally interesting as the nuances of swing.
In my experience, learning jazz is always listening and learning. These new findings on the topic will seriously augment the learning, making what used to be an intangible feeling tangible.
These studies are super interesting and useful but I would like to see additional studies that focus on more than just the swing feel of the drummer and the soloist. The piano, bass, and the rest of the band (if they're playing background figures) all factor in to this collective time feel especially the bass. There is definitely more to be discovered here.
Wonderful video, well done! Explaining the principals followed by real examples proves instantly that knowing the theory doesn’t take away the magic if not adding to it! And with computer metronomes this can be taught as well as parctised. Especially with real backing tracks.
The modern U.S. template is sometimes the bass can be heard and it's tone has some sustain and is just on the front side of the beat. Or in the case of Scott Lafaro style very propulsive. This frees up the drummer to play freer hipper. So if the piano bass and drums can hook up like this then it's an invitation to the horn player to lay back. Brilliant modern jazz drummer Bob Moses said to me that when the Bassist isn't swinging then he feels overly responsible to pick up the slack. Not fun.
I see it as the bassist is really the timekeeper in a jazz band, freeing the drums play around the rhythm more ornamentally. As opposed to (some) rock bands where the drummer is the primary timekeeper and the bassist is freer to act as a "second guitar" of sorts, playing melodic bass lines and so forth.
One of the most intersting illustrations of swing I've seen is a video of Paverotti doing a gig with Simon Le Bon and some symphony orchestra. They alternated verse/chorus cycles on Ordinary Man at one stage. When Paverotti sang it sounded stiff and stilted. When Le Bon sang it souded right, even against the orchestra. The explanation I beleive was simply that Paverotti was singing from the score but Le Bon wasn't. To me this illustrates a simple explanation of swing: it's what makes a lumpen durge rock like a bastard. Angus Young on tunes like Back in Black's famous chord sequence and Kieth Richards guitars on pretty much any Stomes tune swing to high heaven. Everything is early or late, the timings twisted all over the place against the drum patterns. It's Young and Richards ability to do this right that makes the Stones and AC/DC what they are. Another example of both swing aand the idea of "in the pocket" is on the Beatle's Day Tripper. Lennon's famous guitar riff slithers round the beat like a snake. And when John and Paul drop "Got a good reason" into it you get about as good an example of "in the pocket" as you'll find. I defy anybody to score it such that the likes of the LSO and Paverotti could get it to work properly on sight.
@3:40 I set those times that you mentioned in my DAW on a 122 BPM, which is the tempo that Ive calculated your example was running on, to experiment with.
thanks for this video. it all makes sense now 😬.. the last bit of the video about the offbeat sync blew my mind. during my jazz studies we all knew that you had to ‚swing more‘ at slower tempi. and we had an approximate idea for where the down beats of bass, ride and soloist had to be. to get that swing feel some of us were even thinking in 5 ( ō o o ō o ).... But in the end it came down to developing an instinct for when something was ‚swinging’ by listening to records and copying solos. i hope that jazz teachers will use this downbeat-sync thing as a method to teach kids!
In french baroque music ( Couperin ,Lully, Rameau) it was a tradition to play with swing . It was called : notes inégales. As in jazz with several degrees but always equal written . The tradition goes away in 19. century. A french organ player, Michel Chapuis, was certainly the first musicien to play this music with swing from 1952. All baroc musicians plays with swing nowadays. Sorry for my English
Great video! One minor possible criticism about the pronunciation of Jack DeJohnette's name: I've often heard it pronounced as a "di" rather than "de", and more with a "soft J", almost as if French, then a rising "accent" if you will, on the "nette" portion of the last name. Somewhat like this: Jack diszhoNet or like the mustard dijonEt. I'm not saying this is HIS preference, or even that it's correct, but from many Jazz profs at Cornish, that was what I was taught. Language, like swing, certainly can (and should) be analyzed, but it's often faster communicated by "live" experience.
Great video! I have a feel for jazz--love it almost as much as classical--but plan to watch/listen to this again, till I understand it more intuitively. At first hearing my head gets in the way of my voice and hands.
I think it's linked subconsciously somehow, to our spine and neck anatomy, as people bop their heads. Gravity takes your head down, but muscles bring it back up. Two separate forces. When the tempo speeds, it becomes more rigid and forced. But at slow or moderate speeds you can nod your head cooly to the beat with a high degree of control. I think that's why music swings in the first place, just muscles battling gravity to the beat.
I spend a lot of time dwelling at it as a drummer as I try to develop my ride cymbal technique. It definitely flattens out as you gain tempo, and I always felt it was a limitation of anatomy too.
actually the research was suggesting the upper limit was to do with perception, that we can't distinguish swung from unswung at the fastest speeds. I nearly put something in about that, but was trying to keep the video focussed!
Marcelo, I have already contacted some of my professions at the University of Wyoming, I think im going to put together a proposal of how we could integrate this information into our music education at least at the university level. Specifically in the Jazz realm.
@@ke5her look up Parov Stelar. He samples old jazz tunes and remixes them like a nightclub song. That's just one example though, there are a lot of electro swing songs out there.
One way to simulate the feel of a hard swing is through frequency timing. The lower the pitch of the instrument -- e.g. kick drum, bass, etc. -- the more on top of the beat it is. And the higher the pitch, the more behind the beat it is. For example, the snare and mid-range instruments, like piano and guitar, are a little behind the beat. Meanwhile, the higher range instruments, like trumpet and alto-sax, along with the drummer's ride cymbal, are even farther behind the beat. If you program a sequencer, for example, this way, it produces a driving swing.
These videos of yours are really good. The sound effects might be a bit loud but the editing is great otherwise and the information is very well placed throughout the video. Hope to see this channel grow.
Excellent this is something I talk about now and then and everyone says I'm crazy there is a micro flow within the measure. Swing has an influence of the Afro-Cuban clave floating underneath and how even the great bass players playing a quarter note walking bass has a swing to it and the time over a bar flows back and forth. Swing is all about motion even the eighth notes the second eight of a pair has a slight accent to it to push it forward.
Great video and well researched. I think the best way to "get swinging" is still to listen, imitate and "feel". Nonetheless by demystifying it and actually comprehending whats going on, that process can happen way faster. thanks! i subbed
If you where to hand a big band an arrangement, where the rhythm at 6:47 (first bar) is notated the way it is. You would get lynched...speaking from experience! Jazz musicians despise dotted quarternote rests. And also putting a dotted quarternote over the middle of the bar is a no go. As in Jazz it is often talked about the "imaginary barline" in the middle of the bar. That means anything that sounds over the 2 and 3 needs to be tied, so it would need to be a eight note tied to a quarter note. Again, it's all about ease of reading.
Regarding the swing ride cymbal: you can't see this directly from the charts, but even though the ratio changes, the absolute length of the swung note stays consistent (in between 80-120ms or so). The exact length of the swung note is pretty much independent of the tempo. You can try this for yourself: Program an exact triplet swing ride pattern at 125 bpm. Doesn't swing at all. Program it to be exactly a 16th note upbeat and all of a sudden it starts to sound like Philly Joe Jones. Each drummer has their characteristic swing note length (Tony Williams' is very short for example).
Ah. Tony Williams. He changed my life. I still try to convince myself that I can be just like Elvin Jones. But Tony Williams was the butter on your kitchen counter that was forever adaptable and made everything right. Within 32 bars he’d go through 1/64 swing to straight time. I don’t know what ratio that translates to but I can tell you; passing that feel (swing) information on is done by listening.
Fantastic video. Cutting edge in itself. I've never seen a presentation that breaks it down so concisely. Can there be Swings based on other ratios such as 5:1? You could also do an analysis of where certain players put beat One. Jack DeJohnette also played with Miles.
The Hubbard-synchronization with the off beats and delay of the beats is familiar to anybody who heard Lester Young or, for that matter, the Basie Band. The problem with those modern studies is that they include mostly pretty modern players many of whom don’t swing or have a struggling relationship with the various members of the rhythm section. If they would measure what Walter Page, Freddie Green and Jo Jones did as a unit, it would be less muddled. There is hardly anything unconcious as Page used to tell his colleagues exactly what to do, what amount of inegality, accent, delay or anticipation is required. When I, coming from the Ferneyhough-Finnessy experience, tried to notate those effects in Jazz transcription all my teachers, even first rate NY arrangers, would tell me not to bother.
Great video for researching and explaining the scientific study that has been accomplished so far. Let's go back to the birth of jazz and compare the swing quotient in the horn playing of the ODJB, the NORK and the KOCJB and measure that against the rhythm of such early 20th century classical violinists as Micha Elman, Fritz Kreisler and Jascha Heifetz. It might even be possible to find recordings of all six done in 1923. That would be a great research project -
At 6:50, not at all surprising, when considering 2 and 4 (weak beats) are the ones most emphasised in Jazz. The "weak" beats are the strong beats; therefore, emphasised universally. And to the guy discussing metronome placement, jazz musicians typically place the click as 2 and 4.
Cool video. Can you do a comparison between jazz swing and notes inégales? Also, do you think "notes inégales" lost popularity in the classical and romantic periods because of larger orchestras, since it would require the performers to play more uniformly?
I would doubt that's the case cause... it would be the same situation we have whenever an orchestra has the "swung" indication in the score. The conductor swings and everyone follows. Unless, conducting technique was not as sophisticated back in the day. Interesting question...
Great insight .. listening: I’m thinking, is probably the most influential informer of Swing ratio placement etc.. it’s a flexible thing as you so eloquently say .. ‘Fantastic important channel .. Thank you !!
That's really awesome! Especially the last bit was a mind blower. The thing is, humans aren't good at turning theory into music without having extensive listening
really loved this video. I make electronic music so I'm familiar with trying to humanize my music but I've never thought about microrhythms beyond that. Hopefully I'll be able to apply what I learnt here in my compositions. Thanks again for all the great content!
Great video as always! Please keep up the good work. I'm also curious to know how your work with Avi Avital came about and what that was like (I'm also a classical mandolinist)
Thanks, yes Avi is a great friend and I'm writing something for him at the moment. Perhaps we'll get a chance to talk about our many collaborations then!
fascinating! it makes sense that a slower tempo would allow for more 'play' in swing, but i had no idea about the off-beat synchronization (apropos of nothing you should get a stand for that clarinet! it's leaning at a very scary angle)
lol, thanks! The clarinet literally fell over yesterday. I'm not sure if it was before or after the filming! But yes, I treat my instruments pretty badly I have to admit!
I once recorded a few loops of me comping och a stationary chord to have play over, it became very obvious that a thing that I was doing was increasing the swing ratio over a 4 or 8 bar sequence and then releasing it back to (in honesty roughly) the inital swing ratio. Almost analogous to a tension and release of harmony to highlight the periodicity of the music.
Considering just the uptempo to medium tempo: soloist behind the rhythm section and their shuffle (swing ratio) locks them in on the upbeats and creates a rub on quarter notes, the basic pulse. This is swing in a nutshell.
I stumbled upon this idea of "split swing" between soloists and drummers when I was learning to play a song called Sweet Little Rock-n-Roller by Chuck Berry. The bassist and I were debating about the swing of the song. The guitarist and bassist were united in believing the song had no swing whatsoever and if I was being honest, when they did play with a swing feel, it really didn't sound right. The truth is that the drum beat for that song - and a huge number of other "basic" R-n-R songs - is swung while the rest of the band plays straight time. The result is the herky-jerky motion that gives the genre its name.
Accent often trumps placement in swing. And it is not always the "off" beat that gets the accent. It is often the juxtaposition between long and short notes, tuning, sliding (sax etc), accent, and swing "ratio" and their mixtures, that contribute to swing. No university could possibly quantify it with observations on a graph. Because it is infinitely variable.
I play alto sax in an amatuer jazz quartet. We get a bit drunk and play by ear. We're the most popular and entertaining jazz gig in a regular monthly hotel gig, because we;re just enjoying ourselves, channelling Miles Davis or Paul Desmond, so the audience is wanting the music to go where it may, as well as the band. Other more formal bands, reading from manuscript and much more adept, are more boring and far less popular.
I think that the idea of the amount of swing decreasing as the tempo increases is not exactly new, but something that was not mentioned in the video is that when you increase in tempo the accents become much more important in the swing style.
I love this video. Is the snare drum actually changing in relation to the rest of the drum sequence at 3:39? I'm not hearing it, and I didn't think I was that insensitive...
It would be interesting to hear more about how this phenomena also happens in the interpretation of clasical music. People tend to get it wrong all the time...
You can't learn the feel by theory, you have to play it. The most important thing is not to force it, cause you have to stay loose with your body muscles. But you can teach a lot about making the students aware on what to focus while listening and playing. There is a whole Barry Harris youtube video about feeling the "and"
When you swing an object,it makes a curved path.The object spends a longer amount of time near the ends than on the center. We can imagine the swinging object making a note 1/4 and 3/4 of the way on the path.
@3:41 In those examples, what would the hihat do? We only hear the hihat on beat 2 and four, but what about beat three? would the hihat be at the same position as the snare, or would the hihat be a monotomunous beat like metronome?
Very good video. I think there is always something in the timing in good music, that cannot be breaken down to a ratio. Every good musician knows, that when you play EXACTLY any ratio determed rhythm, you will kill any music. Suddenly it sounds dead, has no meaning in the realm of feelings.
You are referring to variation in dynamics, which includes variation in rhythm and tempo. Music is a wave at every level. Modulation of rising and falling energy. Swing is energic modulation within one rhythmic cycle, a beat. You are thinking of energic modulation within full phrases. And you are right: no musical phrase is rhythmically static. However, the individual bars from which the phrase is constructed can maintain the same ratio of swing throughout the phrase without negatively impacting the overall musicality. It's not uncommon for the swing ratio to stay the same throughout the song.
I have heard the golden ratio is close to swing quavers...as opposed to an exact triplet. I'm pretty sure it will vary though as basically this whole video shows.. But mathematically, if you overlay two tempos with golden ratio, you get the least repetition in the rhythms emerging rom the polyrhythm.
Nowadays, much of jazz is not in swing feel but is straight. But the way it is played is far different from the way classical music is played. Listen to the Maria Schneider Band, for instance. Scope for another video perhaps, David?
Wondering how there's a video about swing theory, but no swing era examples - was this a part of any analysis? What about drummers who didn't use a ride cymbal?
