Swing (jazz performance style) - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

In jazz

Jazz

Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...

and related musical styles, the term swing is used to describe the sense of propulsive rhythm

Rhythm

Rhythm may be generally defined as a "movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions." This general meaning of regular recurrence or pattern in time may be applied to a wide variety of cyclical natural phenomena having a periodicity or...

ic "feel" or "groove" created by the musical interaction between the performers, especially when the music creates a "visceral response" such as feet-tapping or head-nodding (see pulse

Pulse (music)

In music and music theory, the pulse or tactus consists of beats in a series of identical yet distinct periodic short-duration stimuli perceived as points in time occurring at the mensural level...

). The term "swing" is also used to refer to several other related jazz concepts including the swung note (a "lilting" rhythm of unequal notes) and the genre of swing, a jazz style which originated in the 1930s. As Swing Jazz was dance music and coevolved together with Swing dances such as Lindy Hop

Lindy Hop

The Lindy Hop is an American social dance, from the swing dance family. It evolved in Harlem, New York City in the 1920s and '30s and originally evolved with the jazz music of that time. Lindy was a fusion of many dances that preceded it or were popular during its development but is mainly based...

the term Swing can be understood as music that makes you want to dance. Even though there is overlap between these concepts, music from any era of jazz or even from non-jazz music can be said to have "swing" (in the sense of having a strong rhythmic groove or feel).

While some jazz musicians have called the concept of "swing" a subjective and elusive notion, they acknowledge that the concept is well-understood by experienced jazz musicians at a practical, intuitive level. Jazz players refer to "swing" as the sense that a jam session or live performance is really "cooking" or "in the pocket."

If a jazz musician states that an ensemble performance is "really swinging", this suggests that the performers are playing with a special degree of rhythmic coherence and "feel". Although referring to a "sense of swing" is often done in the context of ensemble performances (e.g. a jazz combo or band), even an unaccompanied soloist can be said to be performing with "swing".

Description

Like the term "groove", which is used to describe a cohesive rhythmic "feel" in a funk or rock context, the concept of "swing" can be hard to define. Indeed, some dictionaries use the terms as synonyms: "Groovy...[d]enotes music that really swings." The Jazz in America glossary defines it as, "...when an individual player or ensemble performs in such a rhythmically coordinated way as to command a visceral response from the listener (to cause feet to tap and heads to nod); an irresistible gravitational buoyancy that defies mere verbal definition."

As a performance technique, swing has been called, "the most debated word in jazz". When jazz performer Cootie Williams

Cootie Williams

Charles Melvin "Cootie" Williams was an American jazz, jump blues, and rhythm and blues trumpeter.-Biography:...

was asked to define it, he joked: "Define it? I'd rather tackle Einstein's theory

Theory of relativity

The theory of relativity, or simply relativity, encompasses two theories of Albert Einstein: special relativity and general relativity. However, the word relativity is sometimes used in reference to Galilean invariance....

!" Benny Goodman

Benny Goodman

Benjamin David “Benny” Goodman was an American jazz and swing musician, clarinetist and bandleader; widely known as the "King of Swing".In the mid-1930s, Benny Goodman led one of the most popular musical groups in America...

, the 1930s-era bandleader nicknamed the "King of Swing" called 'swing', "free speech in music," whose most important element is, "...the liberty a soloist

Solo (music)

In music, a solo is a piece or a section of a piece played or sung by a single performer...

has to stand and play a chorus

Refrain

A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...

in the way he feels it..." His contemporary Tommy Dorsey

Tommy Dorsey

Thomas Francis "Tommy" Dorsey, Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, trumpeter, composer, and bandleader of the Big Band era. He was known as "The Sentimental Gentleman of Swing", due to his smooth-toned trombone playing. He was the younger brother of bandleader Jimmy Dorsey...

gave a more ambiguous definition when he proposed that "Swing is sweet and hot at the same time and broad enough in its creative conception to meet, every challenge tomorrow may present." Boogie-woogie

Boogie-woogie

Boogie-woogie has the following meanings:*Boogie-woogie, a piano-based music style*Boogie-woogie , a swing dance or a dance that imitates the rock-n-roll dance of the 1950s*"Boogie Woogie" , a song by EuroGroove and Dannii Minogue...

pianist Maurice Rocco argues that the definition of swing, "...is just a matter of personal opinion."

Jeff Pressing's 2002 article claims that a "feel" is, "a cognitive temporal phenomen emerging from one or more carefully aligned concurrent rhythmic patterns, characterized by...perception of recurring pulses, and subdivision

Meter (music)

Meter or metre is a term that music has inherited from the rhythmic element of poetry where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented...

of structure in such pulses,...perception of a cycle of time, of length 2 or more pulses, enabling identification of cycle locations, and...effectiveness of engaging synchronizing body responses (e.g. dance, foot-tapping)." Herro remember

Treadwell concludes his introduction/definition:
A sense of "swing" for jazz artists has analogies in the similarly idealised but indefinable notions of "funk

Funk

Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...

" in funk music, or "flow" in the hip hop

Hip hop

Hip hop is a form of musical expression and artistic culture that originated in African-American and Latino communities during the 1970s in New York City, specifically the Bronx. DJ Afrika Bambaataa outlined the four pillars of hip hop culture: MCing, DJing, breaking and graffiti writing...

scene and music

Hip hop music

Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...

. The notion of a special 'feel' (rather than a set of rules) that defines the musical style is common in non-Western music, especially the African tradition. "Flow is as elemental to hip hop as the concept of swing is to jazz." Just as the jazz concept of "swing" involves performers deliberately playing behind or ahead of the beat, the hip-hop concept of flow is about, "funking with one's expectations of time," - that is, the rhythm and pulse of the music. "Flow is not about what is being said so much as how one is saying it."

Swung note

A "swung note" or "shuffle note" is a performance practice, mainly in jazz-influenced music, in which some notes with equal written time values are performed with unequal durations, usually as alternating long and short. Music of the Baroque and Classical notes inégales
Notes inégales
In music, notes inégales refers to a performance practice, mainly from the Baroque and Classical music eras, in which some notes with equal written time values are performed with unequal durations, usually as alternating long and short...

era follow similar principles. A swing or shuffle rhythm is the rhythm

Rhythm

produced by playing repeated pairs of notes in this way. Lilting can refer to swinging, but might also indicate syncopation

Syncopation

In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak but also powerful beats in a meter . These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat or a rest where one would normally be...

or other subtle ways of interpreting and shaping musical time. A blues shuffle or shuffle pattern is a boogie

Boogie

Boogie is a repetitive, swung note or shuffle rhythm, "groove" or pattern used in blues which was originally played on the piano in boogie-woogie music. The characteristic rhythm and feel of the boogie was then adapted to guitar, double bass, and other instruments. The earliest recorded...

groove.

For example, traditional jazz music is written in 4/4 but played in 12/8. Such music may be annotated "with a swing" or similar, but the swing also may be assumed.

In shuffle rhythm, the first note in the pair is exactly twice the duration of the second note. In swing the division is inexact, and varies depending on factors such as how fast or slow the music is, on the genre of music, or the individual tastes of the performer, from almost equal (typically at fast tempos) to almost shuffle (typically at slow tempos).
In most styles of music that use swing rhythm, the music is written with straight eighth notes, with an implicit understanding that eighth notes should be played with swing feel. Swing rhythms are sometimes notated using dotted eighth notes followed by sixteenth notes.

In jazz, the verb "to swing" is also used as a term of praise for playing that has a strong rhythmic "groove" or drive. See also swing (genre)

Swing (genre)

Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply swing, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States...

for the 1930s-1940s jazz style, and swing (dance)

Swing (dance)

"Swing dance" is a group of dances that developed with the swing style of jazz music in the 1920s-1950s, although the earliest of these dances predate swing jazz music. The best known of these dances is the Lindy Hop, a popular partner dance that originated in Harlem and is still danced today...

for styles of dance from that same era.

Types

Triplets are used in many styles of music including blues, rock and country. The basic shuffle rhythm is created by "leaving out (resting) the middle note of each three-note triplet group." This "triplet" idea allows composers and improvising soloists to include triplets in the melody without clashing with any rhythm patterns.

In most jazz

Jazz

music, especially of the big band

Big band

A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...

era, and later, there is a convention that pairs of written eighth notes are not played equally—as the notation would otherwise be understood—but with the first longer than the second. The first note of each of these pairs is often understood to be twice as long as the second, implying a quarter note-eighth note triplet

Tuplet

In music a tuplet is "any rhythm that involves dividing the beat into a different number of equal subdivisions from that usually permitted by the...

feel, but in practice the difference is rarely that pronounced. Swing eighth notes are generally played legato (slurred). Accenting the "and" between each beat slightly is also a common swing characteristic.

Various Rhythmic Swing Approximations:
- 1:1 = eighth note + eighth note, "straight eighths." (accent the "and")
- 3:2 = long eighth + short eighth, "swing" or "shuffle"
- 2:1 = triplet quarter note + triplet eighth, triple meter
  Meter (music)
  Meter or metre is a term that music has inherited from the rhythmic element of poetry where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented...
  
  ; "medium swing" or "medium shuffle"
- 3:1 = dotted eighth note + sixteenth note; "hard swing", or "hard shuffle"

In true swing feel, the ratio lies somewhere between 1:1 and 2:1, and can vary considerably.

Swing feel is an assumed convention of notation in many styles of jazz. In big band

Big band

, blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

, bebop

Bebop

Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...

, and contemporary jazz, swing feel is assumed, unless "shuffle" is explicitly specified in the score. Notes that are not swung are called straight notes.

The subtler end of the range involves treating written pairs of eighth notes as slightly asymmetrical pairs of similar values. On the other end of the spectrum, the "dotted eighth

Dotted note

In Western musical notation, a dotted note is a note with a small dot written after it. The dot increases the duration of the basic note by half of its original value. If the basic note lasts 2 beats, the corresponding dotted note lasts 3 beats...

- one sixteenth" rhythm, consists of a long note three times as long as the short. Prevalent "dotted rhythms" such as these in the rhythm section

Rhythm section

A rhythm section is a collection of musicians who make up a section of instruments which provides the accompaniment section of the music, giving the music its rhythmic texture and pulse, also serving as a rhythmic reference for the rest of the band...

of dance bands in the mid 20th century are more accurately described as a "shuffle"; they are also an important feature of baroque dance

Baroque dance

Baroque dance is dance of the Baroque era , closely linked with Baroque music, theatre and opera.- English country dance :...

and many other styles. Rhythms identified as swung notes most commonly fall somewhere between straight eighths and a quarter-eighth triplet pattern.

Swing ratios tend to get wider at slower tempos and narrower at faster tempos. Miles Davis

Miles Davis

Miles Dewey Davis III was an American jazz musician, trumpeter, bandleader, and composer. Widely considered one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century, Miles Davis was, with his musical groups, at the forefront of several major developments in jazz music, including bebop, cool jazz,...

varied his swing ratios, frequently delaying the first note of each pair of eighth notes by some milliseconds and then synchronized the second eighth note with the drummer's swing eighths being played on the cymbal. Advanced performers often lay back or play behind the beat when performing jazz melodies by delaying the rhythms by milliseconds.

Quarter notes can sound swung when they are played slightly behind the beat, detached, and accented on the two and four, or late on one and three, but closer to the beat on two and four. Phrases swing when they begin between the beats, similar to how straight eighths can swing when they are behind the beat which creates an asymmetrical cross rhythm.

Rhythm

In jazz

Jazz

, this interpretive device is assumed in most written music other than dixieland

Dixieland

Dixieland music, sometimes referred to as Hot jazz, Early Jazz or New Orleans jazz, is a style of jazz music which developed in New Orleans at the start of the 20th century, and was spread to Chicago and New York City by New Orleans bands in the 1910s.Well-known jazz standard songs from the...

, latin jazz

Latin jazz

Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...

, jazz-funk

Jazz-funk

Jazz-funk is a sub-genre of jazz music characterized by a strong back beat , electrified sounds, and often, the presence of the first electronic analog synthesizers...

(soul-jazz) and jazz-fusion, but may also be indicated. For example, "Satin Doll

Satin Doll

"Satin Doll" is a jazz standard written by Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn with lyrics by Johnny Mercer. Written in 1953, the song has been recorded countless times, by such artists as Ella Fitzgerald, Frank Sinatra, 101 Strings, and Nancy Wilson...

", a swing era

Swing Era

The Swing era was the period of time when big band swing music was the most popular music in the United States. Though the music had been around since the late 1920s and early 1930s, being played by black bands led by such artists as Duke Ellington, Jimmie Lunceford, Benny Moten, Ella Fitzgerald,...

jazz standard is normally interpreted with a pronounced swing rhythm. It was published written in 4/4 time, but at least some versions also note medium swing.

In dance

Dance

Dance is an art form that generally refers to movement of the body, usually rhythmic and to music, used as a form of expression, social interaction or presented in a spiritual or performance setting....

music, swing rhythm generally refers to the meter

Meter (music)

of the music, rather than to this convention of notation, so any music played with the near-triplet timing (see above) and swing accent will be referred to as swing rhythm however they are written.

Styles

Swing is commonly used in blues

Blues

, country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

, jazz

Jazz

, 1930s-1940s swing jazz

Swing (genre)

Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply swing, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States...

, and often in many other styles. Except for very fast jazz, slow ballads, latin jazz

Latin jazz

Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...

, and jazz-rock fusion

Jazz fusion

Jazz fusion is a musical fusion genre that developed from mixing funk and R&B rhythms and the amplification and electronic effects of rock, complex time signatures derived from non-Western music and extended, typically instrumental compositions with a jazz approach to lengthy group improvisations,...

, much written music in jazz is assumed to be performed with a swing rhythm. In some cases, publishers specify that the music is to be performed "with a swing". In jazz

Jazz

and big band

Big band

music, a shuffle is almost always accompanied by a distinctive "cooking" rhythm played on the ride cymbal

Ride cymbal

The ride cymbal is a standard cymbal in most drum kits. It maintains a steady rhythmic pattern, sometimes called a ride pattern, rather than the accent of a crash...

or hi hat.

Styles that always use traditional (triplet) rhythms, resembling "hard swing," include foxtrot

Foxtrot (Dance)

The foxtrot is a smooth progressive dance characterized by long, continuous flowing movements across the dance floor. It is danced to big band music, and the feeling is one of elegance and sophistication...

, quickstep

Quickstep

The quickstep is a light-hearted member of the standard ballroom dances. The movement of the dance is fast and powerfully flowing and sprinkled with syncopations. The upbeat melodies that quickstep is danced to make it suitable for both formal and informal events...

and some other ballroom dances, Stride piano

Stride piano

Harlem Stride Piano, Stride Piano, or just Stride, is a jazz piano style that was developed in the large cities of the East Coast, mainly in the New York, during 1920s and 1930s. The left hand may play a four-beat pulse with a single bass note, octave, seventh or tenth interval on the first and...

, and 1920s-era Novelty piano

Novelty piano

Novelty Piano is a genre of piano music that was popular during the 1920s.A successor to ragtime and an outgrowth of the piano roll music of the teens, novelty piano can be considered a pianistic cousin of jazz, which appeared around the same time....

(the successor to Ragtime style).

Transcription

In the swing era

Swing (genre)

Swing music, also known as swing jazz or simply swing, is a form of jazz music that developed in the early 1930s and became a distinctive style by 1935 in the United States...

, swing meant accented triplets (shuffle rhythm), suitable for dancing. With the development of bebop

Bebop

and later jazz

Jazz

styles independent of dancing, the term was used for far more general timings.

Some publishers of jazz music, especially those whose intended audience is people unfamiliar with jazz styles, transcribe the swing either:

As compound time, such as 6/8, 9/8, or 12/8. When played with the swing accent, these time signature
Time signature
The time signature is a notational convention used in Western musical notation to specify how many beats are in each measure and which note value constitutes one beat....

s may be grouped together and called swing time, or swing time can also mean a simple time played with the swing convention.
As triplet
Tuplet
In music a tuplet is "any rhythm that involves dividing the beat into a different number of equal subdivisions from that usually permitted by the...

s within a duple meter.

However, this notation is not really accurate either.

In general, where music with a swing meter

Meter (music)

is required, musicians in the jazz tradition will prefer to read music written in common time

Common Time

"Common Time" is a science fiction short story written by James Blish. It first appeared in the August 1953 issue of Science Fiction Quarterly and has been reprinted several times: in the 1959 short-story collection Galactic Cluster; in The Testament of Andros ; in The Penguin Science Fiction...

and played with a swing, while musicians in the classical tradition will prefer to read music written in compound time and played as written. However, most jazz musicians will dispute whether music played this way truly has a swing feel.

Rosanna shuffle

The Rosanna Shuffle is the drum

Drum

The drum is a member of the percussion group of musical instruments, which is technically classified as the membranophones. Drums consist of at least one membrane, called a drumhead or drum skin, that is stretched over a shell and struck, either directly with the player's hands, or with a...

pattern from the Grammy Award

Grammy Award

A Grammy Award — or Grammy — is an accolade by the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences of the United States to recognize outstanding achievement in the music industry...

winning Toto

Toto (band)

Toto is an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1977. The group currently consists of Joseph Williams , David Paich , Steve Porcaro , Steve Lukather , Mike Porcaro , and Simon Phillips . Toto is known for a musical style that combines elements of pop, rock, soul, funk, progressive rock, hard...

hit, "Rosanna

Rosanna (song)

"Rosanna" is a song by the American rock band Toto, the opening track from their 1982 album Toto IV. This song won the Record of the Year Grammy Award in the 1983 presentations. Rosanna was also nominated for the Song of the Year award...

". It is known as a "half-time

Half time (music)

In popular music, half time is a type of meter and tempo that alters the rhythmic feel by essentially doubling the tempo resolution or metric division. Thus 4/4 approximates 8/8. It is not to be confused with cut time or odd time. Though notes usually get the same value relative to the tempo, the...

shuffle" and shows, "definite jazz influence". Featuring ghost note

Ghost note

Ghost notes are musical notes occurring in a rhythmic figure which are purposely deemphasized, often to the point of near silence. In popular music drumming these notes are played, "very softly between the 'main' notes," most often on the snare drum in a drum kit.A rhythmic figure may be punctuated...

s and derived from the combination of what Jeff Porcaro

Jeff Porcaro

Jeffrey Thomas "Jeff" Porcaro was an American session drummer and a founding member of the Grammy Award winning band Toto. Porcaro was one of the most recorded drummers in history, working on hundreds of albums and thousands of sessions...

calls the "Bernard Purdie

Bernard Purdie

Bernard Lee "Pretty" Purdie is an American session drummer, and is considered an influential and innovative exponent of funk...

half time shuffle" (Purdie shuffle) and the "John Bonham

John Bonham

John Henry Bonham was an English musician and songwriter, best known as the drummer of Led Zeppelin. Bonham was esteemed for his speed, power, fast right foot, distinctive sound, and "feel" for the groove...

beat" (from "Fool in the Rain

Fool in the Rain

"Fool in the Rain" is a song on English rock band Led Zeppelin's 1979 album, In Through the Out Door. It was the final U.S. single released during the band's tenure, reaching number 21 on the Billboard Hot 100 in February 1980.-Overview:...

") with the well-known Bo Diddley beat. The pattern is notoriously difficult and played by Jeff Porcaro

Jeff Porcaro

on the recording.

External links

The Swing Thing, a web application that converts regular songs into a swing time through
"Jeff Porcaro", Drummer World. including the actual beat with transcription.
"Toto IV Lyrics", Official Toto website.
"Rosanna by Toto", SongFacts.com.
"Rosanna by Toto" from Music.Yahoo.com.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

Description

Swung note

Types

Rhythm

Styles

Transcription

Rosanna shuffle

See also

Further reading

External links