Why does swing sound so "good" ?

[BosseJo]

Making the swing issue some sort of myth is absolutely clueless.

It's worse than clueless. It's the kind of bullshit newbs get from bitter old muso's unwilling or incapable of passing on whatever small amount of knowledge they've gleaned over the years. It's a plague in the world of music. Probably because so many musicians have such a shaky grounding that it's easier to mythologise the process than explain it.
I thought the idea of this forum was to go some small way in countering that nonsense?

I partially agree, but not completely.

When I did my civil-service (it's what you do over as a pacifist insetad of going to the army) I worked in a school for physically handicapped children. Physical handicaps often also lead to mental ones so what was taught during the classes was often rather restricted but still they aimed at explaining the whole world - hence they simplified.

Pointilism for instance became 'paintings made of dots' - and this really annoyed me. The idea of pointilism, as you might know, is to get achieve gradual color changes which are impossible to get by mixing the colors directly - the technqiue works similarly to a tv which actually only has three colors. Pointilism is a complex technique leading to a complex result. If you take away this complexity then nothing worth mentioning is left.

So if those teachers really weren't able to really teach the idea behind pointilism because it was too complex for these pupils I think they better shouldn't have attempted to teach it at all because what they did was misleading, misinforming and stupid. They surely had good intentions but nonetheless they imo totally failed.

Or to quote Einstein: 'things should be as simple as possible - but not simpler'

But then again: perhaps at least some of the pupils would have been able to get it after all if the teachers would have attempted to really explain it.

But then you still have to leave that MPC bollocks away.

Very well said.

[aciddose]

"Conclusion: swing is a nebulous and ill-understood concept."

i think you try to limit it's definition to a level that is far too specific. my definition of "swing" would be any patterned rhythmic variation, period. usually understood to be variation applied within a single bar, even more usually understood to be applied specifically to odd numbered intervals of notes in a sequence.

for example in a chain of triplets, you might move each odd note by some amount and this should often be described as "swing" by people seeing it.

1 2 1 2 1 2 1 2

if you were to move in a pattern the 3rd and 5th note, every group of 7 notes, this wouldnt usually be understood as "swing".

1 1 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 1 1 1 2 1 2 1 1

SO.. my conclusion: the usual definition of swing is far to narrow and should be expanded.

swing - patterned rhythmic variation.

[BosseJo]

And the strange part is that I have played with jazz musicians for years; happily, without incident or audible misunderstanding. They with their fake books and eighth notes and variable ratios, I with my triplets and an early teachers exhortation to relax while playing energetically. And it works. All have been content with the resulting music.

Conclusion: swing is a nebulous and ill-understood concept.

EDITED...
I get the feeling that some part of the problem is that you actually played with real people and not like some others who just sit in front of their computer trying to "understand" if swing is 66%/33% or something else. Oops, there's one percent missing, I guess it corresponds to "stiffness"

[aciddose]

...if you're talking about "swing jazz rhythm" then the triplets definition is correct. this only applies however to "swing jazz" specifically. if you're talking about any other form of music, "swing" has taken on a new meaning.

[duncanparsons]

And the strange part is that I have played with jazz musicians for years; happily, without incident or audible misunderstanding. They with their fake books and eighth notes and variable ratios, I with my triplets and an early teachers exhortation to relax while playing energetically. And it works. All have been content with the resulting music.

Conclusion: swing is a nebulous and ill-understood concept.

I get the feeling that some part of the problem is that you actually played with real people and others just in front of their computer trying to "understand" if swing is 66%/33% or something else. Oops, there's one percent missing, I guess it corresponds to "stiffness"

"stiffness"? nah it's "feel"



DSP

[nuffink]

From: Marc Sabatella

The most basic element of swing is the swing eighth note. In classical music, a set of eighth notes in 4/4 time are meant to take exactly one half of a beat each. This style is called straight eighth notes. Play a C major scale "C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C" in straight eighth notes. If you have a metronome, set it to 96 beats per minute. Those are quarter notes, "one, two, three, four". Subdivide this in your mind, "one and two and three and four and".

A common approximation to swing eighth notes uses triplets. The basic beats are be subdivided in your mind as "one-and-uh two-and-uh three-and-uh four-and-uh", and you play only on the beat and on the "uh". The first note of every beat will be twice as long as the second. This will sound like Morse Code dash-dot-dash-dot-dash-dot-dash-dot and is far too exaggerated for most jazz purposes. Somewhere in between straight eighth notes (1:1 ratio between first and second note) and triplets (2:1 ratio) lie true swing eighth notes. I cannot give an exact ratio, however, because it varies depending on the tempo and the style of the piece. In general, the faster the tempo, the straighter the eighth notes. Also, pre-bebop era players often use a more exaggerated swing than later performers, even at the same tempo. No matter what the ratio, the second "half" of each beat is usually accented, and beats two and four are usually accented as well. Again, the amount of accent depends on the player and the situation.


How is this hard to understand? Where's the mystery? Oh yeah, I know, it's no good because you didn't learn it from a ninja jazzist. By convection, presumably.

[Toxikator]

Making the swing issue some sort of myth is absolutely clueless.

It's worse than clueless. It's the kind of bullshit newbs get from bitter old muso's unwilling or incapable of passing on whatever small amount of knowledge they've gleaned over the years. It's a plague in the world of music. Probably because so many musicians have such a shaky grounding that it's easier to mythologise the process than explain it.
I thought the idea of this forum was to go some small way in countering that nonsense?

I partially agree, but not completely.

When I did my civil-service (it's what you do over as a pacifist insetad of going to the army) I worked in a school for physically handicapped children. Physical handicaps often also lead to mental ones so what was taught during the classes was often rather restricted but still they aimed at explaining the whole world - hence they simplified.

Pointilism for instance became 'paintings made of dots' - and this really annoyed me. The idea of pointilism, as you might know, is to get achieve gradual color changes which are impossible to get by mixing the colors directly - the technqiue works similarly to a tv which actually only has three colors. Pointilism is a complex technique leading to a complex result. If you take away this complexity then nothing worth mentioning is left.

So if those teachers really weren't able to really teach the idea behind pointilism because it was too complex for these pupils I think they better shouldn't have attempted to teach it at all because what they did was misleading, misinforming and stupid. They surely had good intentions but nonetheless they imo totally failed.

Or to quote Einstein: 'things should be as simple as possible - but not simpler'

But then again: perhaps at least some of the pupils would have been able to get it after all if the teachers would have attempted to really explain it.

But then you still have to leave that MPC bollocks away.

I disagree. It's important to teach things in levels or no one can make sense of it. For example, in the fourth grade they teach you that the 13th Amendment to the US constitution freed the slaves, 14th Amendment made them citizens, and the 15th Amendment gave them the vote.

That's a sensible way of explaining it to a 4th grader. Of course, as you study more in-depth US history you learn that the REAL relevance of the 14th Amendment is that it subjugated the power of state governments by making them subservient to the rights of the federal constitution and its "due process" clause which has seen far more important Supreme Court interaction than its initial black rights implications.

You have to teach things in these tiers because it makes comprehension easier. You teach that pointilism is painting with dots because it IS; once you've established that you can later begin with the details

There are of course infinite subtleties to swung playing and swung rhythm, just as there are to ANY musical articulation. However, it makes sense to first think of them in terms of "triplets without the middle note" or perhaps more accurately "triplets without the middle note at slow tempo and halfway between that and straight 8ths at faster tempos", and once that concept is well-grasped, to explore the subtleties of swing and swung performance.

[dirty oscillators]

Why does swing sound so "good" ?

cuz it pushes and pulls more...

[dirty oscillators]

How is this hard to understand? Where's the mystery? Oh yeah, I know, it's no good because you didn't learn it from a ninja jazzist. By convection, presumably.

there's no mystery to swing in technical terms. the mystery is the feeling you get from seeing someone like Herbie Hancock play piano or from hearing a piece of music that evokes certain emotion inside of you....

[Signal chain]

The more the topic goes ...

the bigger the confusion ...


please picture ... midi files ... with small red arrows ...


emm sorry about that

oh and thanks Nuffing doesh dash ... is cool

[duncanparsons]

anyway, @basic channel, do you now know why 'swing sounds so "good"'?

Can we put this to bed?

DSP

[Ubiety]

Every now and then somebody asks a question along the lines of "Why is there so little rhythm theory?".
I reckon we have an answer.
Something as apparently simple in concept as swing can't be defined, not even by college professors (strange how they've all had a formal musical education; still, I digress).
If you haven't learned it over decades at the feet of Bleeding Gums Murphy or Blind Banana Lincoln, don't even try to understand it. Unlike say counterpoint, swing is too subtle and too complex.
The bonus is that after paying your dues you get to laugh at the swing function on sequencers.

What you keep overlooking is the fact that there is a classical tradition of passing on musical knowledge and an oral tradition of passing on musical knowledge. If you pick up a book or attend a class the information that you receive is limited to the perspective of whomever promotes it. When you gain experience on the stand the information you receive is limited not only to how you interpret your experience but also to how different aspects of musical performance is communicated to you through your interaction with other muscians. As such you will yield a unique and important and valid perspective. You will inevitably discover all that had been left out of the books, and you will understand that no book could ever contain it all, or at least you wouldn't have enough time in your life to read and comprehend such a book if it would exist, never mind putting what you would have learned into pracitice.

Those examples that you quote are intended to provide readers and students an overview of swing. In practice, however, one finds that much can only be learned through gained experience. Experience is the stuff that the best professors and instructors do not try to teach; they don't try because they know that a person has to learn from their own experiences in order for any kind of information to be of value to him or her.

The bit about not trying to understand swing sounds bitter, and only you can understand it. Whatever you fears are, if you want to play the blues, then you have to pay your dues with those that play it. Those who communicate that language can tell if you're exercising a limited vocabulary or not. It doesn't matter if you're European, what matters is if you speak the language. And those listeners who love the music can also tell if you're hacking or not. Swing is also language. Good thing you made that remark.

The person who started this thread asked, "Why does swing sound so "good"? Well, at least he or she acknowledges that different answers are likely to be offered, as well as found.

[BosseJo]

From: Marc Sabatella

The most basic element of swing is the swing eighth note. In classical music, a set of eighth notes in 4/4 time are meant to take exactly one half of a beat each. This style is called straight eighth notes. Play a C major scale "C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C" in straight eighth notes. If you have a metronome, set it to 96 beats per minute. Those are quarter notes, "one, two, three, four". Subdivide this in your mind, "one and two and three and four and".

A common approximation to swing eighth notes uses triplets. The basic beats are be subdivided in your mind as "one-and-uh two-and-uh three-and-uh four-and-uh", and you play only on the beat and on the "uh". The first note of every beat will be twice as long as the second. This will sound like Morse Code dash-dot-dash-dot-dash-dot-dash-dot and is far too exaggerated for most jazz purposes. Somewhere in between straight eighth notes (1:1 ratio between first and second note) and triplets (2:1 ratio) lie true swing eighth notes. I cannot give an exact ratio, however, because it varies depending on the tempo and the style of the piece. In general, the faster the tempo, the straighter the eighth notes. Also, pre-bebop era players often use a more exaggerated swing than later performers, even at the same tempo. No matter what the ratio, the second "half" of each beat is usually accented, and beats two and four are usually accented as well. Again, the amount of accent depends on the player and the situation.


How is this hard to understand? Where's the mystery? Oh yeah, I know, it's no good because you didn't learn it from a ninja jazzist. By convection, presumably.

Funny, you quoting Marc Sabatella...You forgot the important stuff though...

From the same page:

"There is also the issue of playing behind or ahead of the beat. When Dexter Gordon plays, even the notes that should fall on the beat are usually played a little bit late. This is often called laying back. It can lend a more relaxed feel to the music, whereas playing notes that should fall on the beat a little bit early can have the opposite effect. Bassists often play slightly ahead of the beat, particularly at faster tempos, to keep the music driving forward."

"Do not be fooled into thinking that swing is a universal constant."

"Learning to play natural sounding swing eighth notes is often the hardest part of learning to play jazz, since it can sound so bad until you can do it well."

"If you have been listening carefully to other musicians, you may be better at recognizing swing than at playing it."

"It has been said that if you cannot swing unaccompanied, you cannot swing. It is important to work on your own concept of swing in this way so that your perception of how you sound is not influenced by the sound of your accompanists."

"While being able to swing unaccompanied is important, it is not easy to do at first, and when developing your swing concept, it can also help to hear it occasionally in the context of a group performance."

[Ubiety]

Making the swing issue some sort of myth is absolutely clueless.

It's worse than clueless. It's the kind of bullshit newbs get from bitter old muso's unwilling or incapable of passing on whatever small amount of knowledge they've gleaned over the years. It's a plague in the world of music. Probably because so many musicians have such a shaky grounding that it's easier to mythologise the process than explain it.
I thought the idea of this forum was to go some small way in countering that nonsense?

Man, you put forth so much contempt and bitterness, and then you don't do ANYTHING to balance out your gripes. You're just weasling your way attack after attack trying to convince somebody that your "delayed eighth notes" hypothesis is the begin all and end all of understanding swing. You don't even go as far as placing it in any context whatsoever. All you do is juxtapose it to some dark hole in your heart and lack of understanding. I advocate the combination of learning from experience and formal training, and all you do is shit out your "delayed eighth notes" hypothesis as being what makes swing feel so good.

Musicians with an unstable musical foundation only have themselves to blame. They are the ones who have to learn. Therefore any shortcoming falls squarely on their lack of commitment and failure to take responsibility. You cannot blame some old musician who no longer has time or energy to teach, but just wants to sit back for the few remaining years he has left. You have to blame the young lazy bastard who gives up, who doesn't do enough to convince the old master that he is worth the effort, who doesn't just go looking for somebody else to take on his trifling ass. The old master doesn't owe that young bitch a damn thing. In fact respect is due the other way around, if only for living a creative life that would get him noticed by some semi-intelligent piece of insignificance.

[nuffink]

From: Marc Sabatella

The most basic element of swing is the swing eighth note. In classical music, a set of eighth notes in 4/4 time are meant to take exactly one half of a beat each. This style is called straight eighth notes. Play a C major scale "C, D, E, F, G, A, B, C" in straight eighth notes. If you have a metronome, set it to 96 beats per minute. Those are quarter notes, "one, two, three, four". Subdivide this in your mind, "one and two and three and four and".

A common approximation to swing eighth notes uses triplets. The basic beats are be subdivided in your mind as "one-and-uh two-and-uh three-and-uh four-and-uh", and you play only on the beat and on the "uh". The first note of every beat will be twice as long as the second. This will sound like Morse Code dash-dot-dash-dot-dash-dot-dash-dot and is far too exaggerated for most jazz purposes. Somewhere in between straight eighth notes (1:1 ratio between first and second note) and triplets (2:1 ratio) lie true swing eighth notes. I cannot give an exact ratio, however, because it varies depending on the tempo and the style of the piece. In general, the faster the tempo, the straighter the eighth notes. Also, pre-bebop era players often use a more exaggerated swing than later performers, even at the same tempo. No matter what the ratio, the second "half" of each beat is usually accented, and beats two and four are usually accented as well. Again, the amount of accent depends on the player and the situation.


How is this hard to understand? Where's the mystery? Oh yeah, I know, it's no good because you didn't learn it from a ninja jazzist. By convection, presumably.

Funny, you quoting Marc Sabatella...You forgot the important stuff though...

From the same page:

"There is also the issue of playing behind or ahead of the beat. When Dexter Gordon plays, even the notes that should fall on the beat are usually played a little bit late. This is often called laying back. It can lend a more relaxed feel to the music, whereas playing notes that should fall on the beat a little bit early can have the opposite effect. Bassists often play slightly ahead of the beat, particularly at faster tempos, to keep the music driving forward."

"Do not be fooled into thinking that swing is a universal constant."

"Learning to play natural sounding swing eighth notes is often the hardest part of learning to play jazz, since it can sound so bad until you can do it well."

"If you have been listening carefully to other musicians, you may be better at recognizing swing than at playing it."

"It has been said that if you cannot swing unaccompanied, you cannot swing. It is important to work on your own concept of swing in this way so that your perception of how you sound is not influenced by the sound of your accompanists."

"While being able to swing unaccompanied is important, it is not easy to do at first, and when developing your swing concept, it can also help to hear it occasionally in the context of a group performance."

What is your point?
I understand Ubiety. He thinks swing is something that you can't do until you've mastered it. I think it's a simple technique that you can learn (and hopefully go on to master).
What are you trying to say? Enlighten us.