Swing time

Subject: Swing time
From: Stanron
Date: 20 Jul 18 - 09:00 PM

When writing notation it is far easier to write a tune in simple 4/4 time and tell the player to play with a swing feel than it is to write the same tune with a 12/8 time signature. The 12/8 time signature woud ensure that the music got played correctly, but it's a pain to write. 4/4 is much simpler to write but it needs the instruction to interpret it as 12/8.

This comparative simplicity plus instruction will have been the same centuries ago as it is now.

The dotted crotchet, or quarter note, followed by a quaver or eighth note gets close. It is simpler to write than 12/8 but does not actually sound right.

Today we write something like 'Swing' or 'Play with swing feel'. Does anyone know what the equivalent was centuries ago?

Subject: RE: Swing time
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 20 Jul 18 - 09:22 PM

Stanron, as a long-time student of classical music,
I can tell you that
the question of notation versus rhythmic execution
is a big one for researchers, scholars, and performers alike.

This is especially true for baroque
and "classical" as opposed to "Romantic" musical scores.
I don't have the answers, believe me --

but your question, the nature of your question,
is taken seriously and discussed heatedly, I promise you.

Subject: RE: Swing time
From: Jack Campin
Date: 21 Jul 18 - 03:51 AM

Look up "notes inégales".

Subject: RE: Swing time
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 21 Jul 18 - 05:02 AM

nothing to do with Fred Astaire...

Subject: RE: Swing time
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 21 Jul 18 - 08:18 AM

Centuries ago, as in the Swing era, the genre determined the micro-rhythm. Players were and are expected to know a lot about correct articulation, which is by no means sufficiently characterized by some note lengths. Notating 12/8 may lead to completely wrong rhythms.

If you want to give an additional hint to your players, use this decoration.

Subject: RE: Swing time
From: Stanron
Date: 21 Jul 18 - 09:11 AM

Hi Grishka, yes I've seen that one. Do you know how old it is?

Subject: RE: Swing time
From: GUEST,Grishka
Date: 21 Jul 18 - 09:57 AM

Stanron: certainly not as old as "centuries ago". As I wrote, it used to be implicit to the particular genre, often indicated by the title. Also, the rhythmic interpretation was often, and sometimes still is, left to the taste of the players or listeners.

Modern scholars are trained to ask the question "How did the composer intend it to be played?" If they could actually interview a composer of Shakespeare's time, the answer might well be "As you like it!"

Subject: RE: Swing time
From: leeneia
Date: 21 Jul 18 - 01:20 PM

I've been looking into swing since Captain Swing posted his 'All the Work's Done Waltz.' I believe there are three main principles.

If you have two eighth notes, put half a dot on the first one. Shave half a dot off the front of the second one. This is easier to do when you are not looking at the sheet music which tells you to play them the same.

To really learn the tune, listen to your fellow band members who have already mastered it. We can hear and imitate complex rhythms easier than we can read them.

Do this to the melody, not the bass part. Dancers need somebody to play the rhythm straight so they can dance right.

Subject: RE: Swing time
From: Stanron
Date: 21 Jul 18 - 02:03 PM

I find the whole subject interesting. A dotted rhythm sounds quite different from a triplet swing sound. It's not really surprising. In a triplet swing rhythm the long note is twice as long as the short note but in a dotted rhythm the long note is three times the length of a short note.

It's been a while since I used Sibelius but I remember that you had a choice of several settings for swing feel. I think that 100% was full triplet swing and there were several settings for less swing.

I used to have a cassette of a Library of Congress recording of Ukrainian immigrants made in the 1920s. Some of the rhythms on that were most strange to my ears. Sort of swing but not as we know it. I may well still have the cassette but now I have nothing to play it on.

Subject: RE: Swing time
From: GUEST,Tootler
Date: 21 Jul 18 - 06:49 PM

I recently found an article I had saved from New Scientist some years back.

Someone had done some research into how Jazz Musicians interpreted swing.

Their basic finding was it depends on tempo. In slower pieces they would play pretty close to a 2:1 ratio but with quicker pieces they would steadily get closer to 1:1 and with the quickest pieces they would play a 1:1 ratio.

To respond to leenia's comment. Once you get used to the idea that for most popular genres, the written music gives you the bare bones of the melody, and you have to understand the genre to interpret it, then you can quite easily interpret the written music accordingly.

I don't have any problems reading and playing a dotted hornpipe that's written in straight quavers because I'm used to the style and will "swing" the quavers because I know how hornpipes should sound. It is, as you say, about listening to how others play the music and learning the style.

Subject: RE: Swing time
From: G-Force
Date: 22 Jul 18 - 04:33 AM

I played in a jazz band for a while. One of the pieces we played was the Pink Panther theme, which had the instruction: 'groovy mysterioso'.

Subject: RE: Swing time
From: leeneia
Date: 22 Jul 18 - 04:12 PM

I like it, G-force.

Hi, Tootler. As you say, learning the sound. I never thought of popular music such as big band having a tradition, but my brother used to play big band music as recently as the 1990's. One day he was amazed to be given hand-written big band music from the 1940's to put on his stand. He was awe-struck.

Yes, there still are people who hire big bands for certain events, at least in Wisconsin.

Subject: RE: Swing time
From: Stanron
Date: 22 Jul 18 - 07:33 PM

Another thing that interests me in this subject is how literal interpretation of notation might feedback into aural traditions and alter them. Say, for instance, a particular genre played a tune form, for example a hornpipe, with a triplet swing feel. This gets notated as 4/4 maybe using a word like 'Lively' as a code for swing interpretation. The tune gets put into a collection without the 'lively' bit and, as a result, re-enters the tradition as a reel.

Would this be a good thing, a bad thing or just part of the folk process?

Subject: RE: Swing time
From: Donuel
Date: 22 Jul 18 - 07:39 PM

I've seen conductors take a fast swing piece in 1 and leave half the orchestra going twice as slow. Swing ain't easy but Woody Allen can still do it on his clarinet :^}===