Why does swing sound so "good" ?

[herodotus]

Why does swing sound so "good" ?

Because you want it to.

Seriously.

'Swing' is one of those popular but really vague words that become so rich with meaning and importance to people that they don't realize that no one ever really defined it very well.

'Punk' is another such word.

As is 'existential'.

I, for one, have always felt that the key to 'real' swing as performed by, say, Duke Ellington's band circa 1940, is to relax while you are playing enthusiastically.

This sounds trivial, but actually there are very few musicians who know how to do this effectively. For example, the more recent 'Duke Ellington' band under Mercer Ellington completely fails (IMHO) to swing in this sense.

All of the verbiage about ratios and whatnot is just an inefficient way of noting this sense of relaxation.

It's like making soup. If you know what you are doing, you never measure anything. In fact, you might even have trouble writing a recipe, because the whole process is variable, based on ones senses of smell and taste.

[basic channel]

Why does swing sound so "good" ?

'Swing' is one of those popular but really vague words that become so rich with meaning and importance to people that they don't realize that no one ever really defined it very well.

I thought it was basically defined as delayed triplets, giving that lovely languid, laidback funky rhythm..?

[duncanparsons]

[W.A.G.] Could be that playing two triplets and resting the third gives a cycle of anticipation/resolution that continues throughout the song, at a faster pace than phrase-, bar-, and section-level rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic structures. [/W.A.G.]

well, of course, that would really be playing a triplet, having a bit of a sit down, playing another then back to the beginning again. 'Playing two triplets and resting the third' gives a very jilting sort of beat which can be very effective, but isn't known for swinging [tho' with intelligent placement of a kick can make it swing in a kinda serial drumming kinda way].

OTW, I guess I'm with John on this one: swing, when defined, ceases to swing. If you attach a meme to something thats felt it's just going to cause problems - like love... whilst our own definitions of love may have similarities, the way we express it may be quite different.



DSP

[nuffink]

Why does swing sound so "good" ?

'Swing' is one of those popular but really vague words that become so rich with meaning and importance to people that they don't realize that no one ever really defined it very well.

I thought it was basically defined as delayed triplets, giving that lovely languid, laidback funky rhythm..?

Nope. It's not delayed triplets, it's delayed eighths. And while I'd agree that many of the rhythmic "feels" (groove, pocket, shuffle etc) are nebulous and ill defined, swing is well understood, well defined and has been for a long time.

Plus, the "you just got to feel it man" attitude is ok for a seasoned pro to use if he doesn't wish to or can't pass on his knowledge. It's worse than useless for a forum dedicated to theory.

[duncanparsons]

..sorry nuff...

Swing as a metrical device, I agree, is 'well understood'; however there is a difference between a mechanical swing, which can sound contrived, and a swing that is 'felt', ie there are deviations from the mechanical term which we define as "good" (see thread title). We can of course get "bad" swing, where the deviations are pushed too far.

I would not agree that 'shuffle' is ill-defined. Often swing and shuffle are used interchangeably, and there may even be a case for arguing that 'shuffle' is the doughnutted triplet device we've all been talking about, and that 'swing' is the ill defined meme.

I still agree that swing is 'well understood', but I'm still not convinced it is 'well defined'.

I feel I'm still with John, but I don't have the conviction to be defined with him...

hmm... I'm rambling now!

DSP

[rounser]

I doubt that those who are getting mystical about swing use it very much. Nuff is spot on the money, it's not magical, and automated application of swing still sounds like gold when compared to quantised beats.

[duncanparsons]

hmm I'm still not in entire agreement there.

There's more than just metrical empiricism at work to get something properly swinging.. accents made a huge difference - both lack of them and incorrectly placed accents can turn a perfectly formed 'swing' [as seen in your favourite piano roll] into a lifeless set of blips at best, to an incoherent, unmusical mess at worst.

There's still room for talking about 'feel' without it being mystical and magical..

DSP

[nuffink]

..sorry nuff...

Don't be. This thread is less than two pages long and there are already at least three different things being talked about as "swing".

1.) The objective, teachable technique of delaying 8ths - Me and JJF
2.) The subjective feel that makes your arse move - You and Hero
3.) A dance genre - Uchdryd

All of which are correct under certain circumstances.

That's talking about music for you. The nomenclature isn't fixed.

[Scribble]

p.s. FLS uses 16th shuffle which isn't as funky as true 8th swing. The answer is to halve the BPM and treat FL's 16th notes as 8ths. Then it grooves.

This always annoyed me. I wish you could control each indivisually like when drumming.

Can't you do this with the shift function in the graph editor of the step sequencer? Assuming you use the step sequencer for drums...

http://www.flstudio.com/help/html/steps ... gredit.htm

[nuffink]

p.s. FLS uses 16th shuffle which isn't as funky as true 8th swing. The answer is to halve the BPM and treat FL's 16th notes as 8ths. Then it grooves.

This always annoyed me. I wish you could control each indivisually like when drumming.

Can't you do this with the shift function in the graph editor of the step sequencer? Assuming you use the step sequencer for drums...

http://www.flstudio.com/help/html/steps ... gredit.htm

Sure. The above trick just allows you to use FLs Swing slider to do it on the fly.

[Vibro Larynx]

At least, 'swing' or the more modern term 'shuffle' (borrowed from boogie) got its popular attention in modern dance music (e.g. techno/house) with the introduction of the 'Schaffelfieber' V.A. compilations appearing on the Kompakt label. Here artists stick to a dogma-like rule of off-beating hihats and hereby producing that well, uhm, nicely shuffled beat.

Schaffel

*Edit*: I admit: although I never completely understood various variants in making a beat 'swing' (technically wise) I swung a lot to those beats. B.t.w. I thought swing is not working very well on music with high speed ( > 170 BPM), like tarnce, but I'm obviously wrong, since drum and bass proves the opposite.

[basic channel]

p.s. FLS uses 16th shuffle which isn't as funky as true 8th swing. The answer is to halve the BPM and treat FL's 16th notes as 8ths. Then it grooves.

This always annoyed me. I wish you could control each indivisually like when drumming.

Can't you do this with the shift function in the graph editor of the step sequencer? Assuming you use the step sequencer for drums...

http://www.flstudio.com/help/html/steps ... gredit.htm

Sure. The above trick just allows you to use FLs Swing slider to do it on the fly.

There also some quite clever ways to play around with swing per pattern in FLS - either using templates in piano roll or even peak controller lfo to control offset.

I haven't tried them yet - all I wanted was to have independant swing slider control per pattern, just to play around with rhythms quickly on the fly

BC

[duncanparsons]

B.t.w. I thought swing is not working very well on music with high speed ( > 170 BPM), like tarnce, but I'm obviously wrong, since drum and bass proves the opposite.

see also bebop - often v fast tempos, but everything very "swung"

DSP

[Signal chain]

Thanks Jumping flag and Nuffing ...precise and synthetic as usual.

[Sascha Franck]

see also bebop - often v fast tempos, but everything very "swung"

Hm... difficult issue, all that swing and shuffle stuff.
The main problem being that usually swing degrees vary with tempo (that's why I'm using your quote, Duncan, not to say there's anything wrong with it per se).

However, as has been said, from a pure mechanical point of view, swing is dead easy to explain. You simply treat 8th notes as the first and last notes of an 8th note triplet. Done.
Same goes for 16th note swing (often referred to as "half time swing" or "half time shuffle").
The only further thing to know from a theoretical point of view would be the swing factor/amount. This is defining how much you play the offbeat notes later - because the "ideal" 2/1, 66% (or whatever you may call the factor) swing isn't exactly happening very often.

In an actual piece of music this is varying greatly, and, apart from the used tempo, it depends a lot on other factors as well, mainly timing and dynamics.
If you for example have an 8th note hat pattern and accent the onbeats, even if you're using a rather high swing factor, the swing will become somewhat disguised. With the offbeat 8ths accented, even a lower swing factor can actually produce a swing feeling. In traditional swing music you may very often hear soloists not swinging much at all, just that their accents are falling on the offbeats, hence giving a feel of swing nonetheless.
This is especially true for higher tempi. "Ideal" swing in an 8th note context is only working for tempi roughly between 100 and 180 BPM (a very rough figure). On faster tempi (rather common for bebop tunes), the swing factor will be much less, sometimes not even existing anymore. On slower tempi however, the swing factor will sometimes be even more than those 66% - so the resulting rhythmical values would be more like a dotted 8th and a 16th. This can be heard easily in many jazz ballads.
Fwiw, when dealing with 16th note swing, the same applies for half the BPM number - an "ideal" 16th note swing will start to sound sort of childish from tempi above 100-120 or so.

Then, in addition to varying swing factors and dynamics, there's the timing aspect. A lot of good players will often play quite laid back (especially true for improvisations). Now, as a result, both the onbeat and offbeat 8ths will be delayed by whatever amount. On faster tempi, with less of a swing factor, this will sometimes even result in almost even 8ths, just that they're played late in time.

Oh, and fwiw, to make things even more complexed, in a lot of music, swing factors will vary between the individual instruments. James Browns stuff is a perfect example how there's some players swinging quite a lot whereas others almost don't swing at all. Yet, the overall groove is sounding absolutely "in the pocket".

Fortunately, with sequencers, you can try out all these things easily. The best sequencer to fool around with probably being Logic, as it offers visual control of all used swing settings for each and every part (something no other sequencer does, unfortunately, as it's such a godsend).

And btw, as nuffink already sort of mentioned it: There's situations (such as in a house beat) when both 8th and 16th note swing can happily co-exist. In that given house beat, you may for example apply whatever amount of 8th note swing on an 8th note hat pattern, whereas, say, a conga pattern would do well with some 16th note swing.