Help on understanding time signatures.

[Deric]

I've seen drummers who couldn't swing if they hung.

Toxikator, I know jack-from-diddley about this (trying to learn a little from this thread), what time sig. do you think the track (in your post above) is/should-be?

[Amberience]

Hold on, I have an experiment in an attempt to settle this.

Though the score labels it, I'm sure, as 4/4 with swing, this song is based on triplet 8th notes. You can hear distinct and readily identifiable triplets in virtually EVERY solo, and even in the main riff later on in the song.

The song, BTW, is Benny Goodman's Orchestra (you know, the "king of swing").

Tell me that isn't triplet 8th notes (compound time). There's NO WAY you don't hear it.

But don't triplets exist independent of time signatures? If they do, then it is possible to have tripets throughout a song regardless of time signature.

So the piece could be both in 4/4 and comprised of triplet 8th's. You equate triplet 8ths with compound time, and maybe it is my inexperience, but I don't think that is quite true.

[Deric]

But don't triplets exist independent of time signatures? If they do, then it is possible to have tripets throughout a song regardless of time signature.

That's exactly what I thought, i.e. a triplet is 'just' three notes - but I'd add that they are played in the time allowed by one beat.

Isn't the 'swing/swung' element just the relative spacing of how the three notes are played (within the one beats worth of time)?

i.e. If it's a straight triplet then the three notes are played for equal duration (and with equal spacing between the three notes), and if it's swung then last two notes (of the triplet) occupy, say, as much time as the first note?

BTW, Is the time sig. for this piece 4/8?

[Toxikator]

Triplets as in "compound time".

The Benny Goodman piece, though notated in 4/4, is sounded more like 12/8, which uses three notes per quarter rather than two. Jazz musicians understand to play with swing, and so the convention is to notate 4/4. However, a more literal transcription would be 12/8, possibly with ritardando or rubato.

It's highly possible to notate it either way, this whole thing arose from the comment that swing is essentially the same thing as triplets without the middle note (and the insistence of several members that this just absolutely is NOT the case).

The swung notes are sounded "late" from when they should, which is how the triplet form comes about.

Musically, they go from being straight 8ths to triplets w/o the middle note to a dotted quarter and a 16th. Metrically, the "in between" timings aren't distinguishable. The slight relaxation of timing (tempo rubato) is a distinct musical feature, and though it may be a part of the "with swing" definition, they're still triplets in metric function.

I mean lissten to the Benny Goodman piece, that's compound time. The solos use triplets all the time, it's understood that the 'hole' left by swinging the beat can be filled with another note.

EDIT- Just to provide textual backup, from the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz's website:

Swing
2. A way of performing eighth notes where downbeats and upbeats receive approximately 2/3 and 1/3 of the beat, respectively, providing a rhythmic lilt to the music.

2/3 and 1/3? why, that sounds like the duration of two notes of a triplet alongside the third one!

[duncanparsons]

ooh, what about Brubeck's Take 5 (he asked him knowingly, nod nod, !)

scored in 5/4 - should it really be in 15/8????

DSP

[nuffink]

EDIT- Just to provide textual backup, from the Thelonius Monk Institute of Jazz's website:

Swing
2. A way of performing eighth notes where downbeats and upbeats receive exactly 2/3 and 1/3 of the beat, respectively, providing a rhythmic lilt to the music.

2/3 and 1/3? why, that sounds like the duration of two notes of a triplet alongside the third one!

Statement corrected for those jazz errors mentioned earlier.

[Deric]

The description of 'Swing' fits with my (basic) understanding of what it is and how it sounds.

Can (anyone?) explain to me 'how' to listen to the Benny Goodman piece as I really can't get a handle on it as 12/8.

For instance I am listening to the drummer and, to me, it sounds like there are four beats to each bar but the drummer is playing eighth notes (i.e. drummer is playing eight beats in each bar - where each beat he plays is occupies half the time of a bars beat).

[Toxikator]

If you hear the bass as playing one note every quarter note (a fast 4) then it's swung 8th notes. If you hear the bass playing one note every 8th note then you actually want to listen for swung 16th notes.

And Nuffink the point of that comment was to demonstrate that the fact that the notes are off-time or "erroneous" triplets demonstrates that they're still triplets.

Yes, they have a loose groove, and I've conceded/stated that fact MANY times now. Loose triplets though they may be, they are still triplets.

You can't grab that technicality forever. Just because the timing is slightly shifted doesn't change what they are, musically.

[nuffink]

The description of 'Swing' fits with my (basic) understanding of what it is and how it sounds.

Can (anyone?) explain to me 'how' to listen to the Benny Goodman piece as I really can't get a handle on it as 12/8.

For instance I am listening to the drummer and, to me, it sounds like there are four beats to each bar but the drummer is playing eighth notes (i.e. drummer is playing eight beats in each bar - where each beat he plays is occupies half the time of a bars beat).

Don't try and understand it as 12/8. It's 4/4 swung. Count it as and-one-and-two-and-three-and-four. It's important that you start your count on the "and". You count swung pairs as and-one not one-and. The reason is that you can shorten the distance between and-one at will. It's much harder to lengthen one-and. I've no idea why, it just is.

Armed with that you'll hear the swing.

Beware. Once you can feel it, it's worse than any drug.
It really don't mean a thing if it aint got that swing.

[Hink]

2. A way of performing eighth notes where downbeats and upbeats receive approximately 2/3 and 1/3 of the beat, respectively, providing a rhythmic lilt to the music.

but are triplets approximate?

[Hovmod]

[Toxikator]

but are triplets approximate?

they can be. all rhythms can be.

You can't just change the time because of rhythmic fluctuation.

After all, Moonlight Sonata is still in 3/4, even though the 'grid' is highly (and intentionally) flexible.

[Hink]

but are triplets approximate?

they can be. all rhythms can be.

and when they are they are called swing?...You'll have to forgive me, but I am confused by you saying swing=triplets, which imo is an absolute statement. But then you back that up with "approximately" and "can be"...which is not absolute and suggests "open to imterpretation"

[Toxikator]

Swing rhythms are triplets. The fact that swing rhythms are also of loose timing doesn't stop them from being triplets.

that's my point. The discussion came about how triplets and swing weren't at all the same thing, that instead swing involved shifting 8th notes in some way completely different from triplets without the middle note. The timing is flexible, that's the nature of the style, but the rhythm is still built out of triplets. that's all.

[nuffink]

Ok. I'll let you into a secret. They're quintuplets. Those old jazzmen divided the beat into 5 and swore an oath to old nick only ever to use the 1st and 4th of those divisions.
Keep it a secret now.