The drummer’s other activities, as well as the rhythms played by soloists and other accompanists are likewise based on a mix of triple and duple subdivisions. In a typical straight-ahead jazz performance, the bass player outlines the chord changes using quarter-note walking bass lines while the drummer plays triplet-based (or you can think of it as 6/8 or 12/18) rhythms on the ride cymbal. The polyrhythms that abound in jazz involve the mixing of duple and triple rhythmic feels. Jazz is inherently polyrhythmic, and the cultural preference for polyrhythms can be traced back to African practices that both influenced jazz directly and informed the musical precursors to jazz. If you want to approach a more “authentic” swing feeling in your jazz playing, you need to address the triplet feel that gives swing its characteristic “bounce,” and you need to become aware of and internalize, visualize, and exploit jazz’s polyrhythmic elements.įurther, in the latter decades of the 20 th century, consensus has slowly emerged among many scholars, musicians, and jazz aficionados that many rhythmic characteristics of jazz, including swing, are the result of the influence of West African music on jazz.
In other words, jazz is all about the 8 th-note triplet. What more closely approximates the truth is a triplet-based model of swing feel. I challenge this assumption (see the musically notated examples below), as have many other people in the past. Early musicians trying to notate jazz in the first handful of decades of the 20 th century would sometimes notate swing 8 th notes using dotted-8 ths and 16 th notes. The rhythmic feel we call “swing” certainly is elusive and hard to define, codify, and conceptualize. Internalize, visualize, and play off of 8 th-note triplets. By drawing your attention to three aspects of rhythm, you will be able to more easily generate swingin’ lines and play with a better time-feel. However, I want to show you three practicing tools and improvisational strategies that will instantly help you take your playing to the next level rhythmically. Rhythm is a HUGE topic, and there’s no way I or anyone else could address all there is to say and practice in one post. Don’t let myths like “you can’t teach swing” and “you either have good time/phrasing/rhythm, or you don’t” deter or discourage you from achieving your rhythmic goals. That being said, no matter how challenging it may be to define, conceptualize, and practice swing, the truth is you have the power to improve your sense of time, time-feel, rhythm, swing, and phrasing through concerted effort. It’s notoriously difficult to pinpoint, describe, capture, teach, and learn the subtle shadings of jazz rhythmic concepts such as “swing.” The rhythmic aspects that make jazz a singular and compelling style of music are incredibly elusive, elastic, variable, and dynamic.
We want to be able to make music with such a deep groove that people can’t help but move their bodies when they hear us play.Īs jazzers, we have all sorts of words and phrases we use to describe the special moments when our improvisations achieve an exceptional sense of time-feel and a certain rhythmic sparkle: we say the music “grooves,” is “in the pocket,” “swingin’,” is “locked in,” “clicks,” “dances,” “flows,” etc. It doesn’t matter if you’re a seasoned pro, a young player just starting out, or a hobbyist – we all want our music to be rhythmically compelling. When you listen to other vocalists, you’ll notice differences in how they approach swing feel.Making improvised lines truly swing is one of the biggest challenges jazz musicians face at all levels of their musical development. Many times just bringing more emphasis and energy to each phrase you sing helps your swing feel immensely. Make your swing feel have the same energy and attack as their ride cymbal pattern or their hi-hat beat.Įmphasizing specific words within a phrase with breath energy or more articulation may help you swing more.
If you are feeling unsure about feeling the basic pulse of the tune, try to sing it “straight,” or without any swing feel so that you can emphasize each beat and really feel them all individually.Īs you practice swinging, imagine you are a drummer. Listen to other vocalists/instrumentalists and how they swing! Make sure you always know where you are in the measure so you never get lost. This is an important skill you can take more liberties with the melody as long as you are grounded in the quarter-note pulse.įeel the triplets: tri-pl-et, tri-pl-et, tri-pl-et.įeel the eighth notes as swung: doo-vah, doo-vah, doo-vah. In this lesson, Rachel once again sings “Summertime”, this time explaining how develop a strong sense of swing using three techniques: pulse, triplet/shuffle feel and swung eighth notes.įeel all four beats in the melody.
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