Talk:Swung note

Swing rhythm

Please see Talk:Swing rhythm. Andrewa 19:52, 18 September 2005 (UTC)

Removed

I removed the following as it spends a great deal of time describing the quarter note pulse established by the bass or kick drum and the backbeat played by the snare and very little time explaining the triplet rhythm that is the shuffle rhythm. Hyacinth 10:52, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

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Shuffle

The shuffle rhythm is a rhythm that can be regarded as the basis of the blues backbeat, and can be heard on many jazz, rock and roll and soul music recordings.

The beat can be seen as consisting of four triplets per bar, with the first and third notes of each triplet being sounded. When played on a drum kit, this triplet rhythm is typically played as an ostinato on the high hats or ride cymbal. At the same time, a kick drum beat is sounded on the first beat of the bar snare drum beat is sounded on the first note of the second triplet.

If this description is too theoretical, borrow your dad's copy of "That'll Be the Day" by Buddy Holly and the Crickets, or "Green Onions", and try tapping along to the Da-di-Da-di rhythm going on in the background - if this works, you're halfway to shuffling!

Among the most expert exponents of the rhythm is session drummer Bernard Purdie, who can be heard shuffling, among other things, as drummer for Aretha Franklin.

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Swing

Why isn't this page at Swing (music)? Hyacinth 12:02, 11 December 2005 (UTC)

It would need some rewriting, but I think that's exactly where it should be. It's where both German and French Wikipedias put it... admittedly, far shorter articles. But neither even mentions a swung note, and no muso I've asked (including many professionals, both Jazz and otherwise) has ever heard of a swung note. Frankly, the current setup makes English Wikipedia a laughingstock. We should certainly retain the material on swung note, but we shouldn't redirect swing time etc to an article by that name. Perhaps I'll have another go at fixing it... I tried once before. Andrewa (talk) 18:51, 12 January 2008 (UTC)

Agree. It's unusual to talk about a (single) swung note - you just talk about swing! Actually 'Swing Time', which redirects to this article, would also be preferable. Happypoems (talk) 11:35, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Hip hop?

There is a list of music styles that sometimes or always use swung notes, and hip hop isn't on the list, even though hip hop often times uses a swung beat. Would it be a legitimate thing to add?

-- eyebrowsoffire

What classical musicians prefer

Regarding this recent addition to the transcription section:

In general, where music with a swing metre is required, musicians in the jazz tradition will prefer to read music written in common time and played with a swing, while musicians in the classical tradition will prefer to read music written in compound time and played as written.

My experience as a classical conductor is that pretty much all musicians understand the concept of swing and can apply it as needed (if not as well as experienced jazz players), so "prefer" seems a little strong. Transcriptions in triplets or 12/8 are pretty much just for beginners. —Wahoofive (talk) 04:23, 14 January 2006 (UTC)

"played as written" ?

I just wanted to toss in a note here: most of the jazzfolk with whom I've interacted would disagree that "played as written" is an accurate way to describe "swing time" transcribed into sets of triplets or as standard measures in compound meter. Besides the problem of the natural stresses being quite different (which has been noted in another discussion hereabouts), it's also just not true that the rhythmic proportions of a "swing beat" and a classical "compound beat" are identical. That last, accented segment of the divided beat in swing doesn't really receive a neatly-divided 33-and-1/3 percent of the total beat duration, as is intended in a classical compound beat. If it's played that way - "as written" - it doesn't swing, even if the accent is correctly placed. The true "swung" note feels a bit "delayed" to the classical musician - as if it's outside the regular metrical division... which it actually is.

Discipulus Orbis Terrarum 21:21, 16 April 2006 (UTC)

You are partially correct, however, see Swung note#Amount of swing. Hyacinth 17:35, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Yes, I'd read that section and a number of linked articles as well; I still feel that the words I mentioned are misleading. Swing does indeed have many variants along a wide spectrum, but, as I was taught, none of these is truly equivalent to compound rhythm played as written in the classical sense. What we would consider true compound rhythm is rather like an excluded middle point to the graph of swing, precisely because it's the middle point; it's too balanced, too symmetrical, whereas the whole push of swing rhythm is to unbalance. Discipulus Orbis Terrarum 19:26, 30 April 2006 (UTC)

Development

• "Early blues was often accompanied by a band playing in 12/8 within which the singer, who generally exercised great rhythmic freedom, often accented notes other than the beat. Some argue that this, combined with the persistent offbeat accents of ragtime, may have led to swing rhythms pervading early jazz. Such 'structural' theories of swing's origin are dubious, though, since the feeling of swing can't be approximated by any particular arrangement of note values in western music notation."

I removed the above from the article as we need some sources. Hyacinth 17:31, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Removed: External links

• Jazz Resources: "Glossary" including swing and swung-eight, Jazz in America.org
• "Jazz Fundamentals: Swing: Definition", Outside Shore Music: A Jazz Improvisation Primer by Marc Sabatella
• "It Don't Mean A Thing If It Ain't Got That Swing", by Alisdair MacRae Birch Just Jazz Guitar Magazine Aug 2003 alisdair.com (PDF), is a look at swing timing, what we mean by swing and working on swing feel.
• "Guitar Notes and Rhythm - E Blues Shuffle Rhythm", AccessRock.com
• Grouping Rules: "Ensemble Swing", The Science of Music Performance
• "Why jazz swings", EdwardWillett.com by Edward Willett (2001)
• Jazz swing drummers groove analysis (PDF), "Error 404: NOT FOUND! Your browser cannot find the document corresponding to the URL you typed in." See: Archive index at the Wayback Machine

Supposedly the above links are all spam. Hyacinth (talk) 21:06, 22 July 2008 (UTC)

Requested audio

I have added some audio examples to the article. Hyacinth (talk) 04:00, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

Cleanup

I removed the cleanup tag from the article as it is from July 2008 and no reason is given on this talk page. Hyacinth (talk) 06:03, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Merge: Rosanna shuffle

Rosanna shuffle is an unreferenced stub regarding a half time shuffle. Hyacinth (talk) 06:02, 3 March 2010 (UTC)

Is this really the article you mean? Hardly unreferenced, and it actually looks like a good short article.

I'm a little surprised that this is regarded as swing. Has anyone else here actually played or even heard the song in question? Jeff Porcaro was certainly from a jazz background, as were almost all the foundational rock drummers! But he's rarely claimed as an influence in jazz genres. He did play with Miles Davis on occasion, but his influence is solidly in pop and rock.

IMO Rosanna is not swing in style. Has this rhythm been subsequently adopted into swing style music? By whom? I'm skeptical.

But the merge does no great harm, provided the redirect points to the material. Andrewa (talk) 01:34, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

See also Talk:Swing (jazz performance style)#Rosanna shuffle, which seems a more logical place to continue the discussion. Andrewa (talk) 02:12, 9 July 2011 (UTC)

I find it ridiculous to include a reference to a Toto pop song in an article about jazz and swing. If you want to get into specific songs that relate to this article, you could find an almost infinite number that would beat out Rosanna in terms of relevance. It is this type of nonsense that hurts the credibility of wikipedia as a reference. WTF???? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Miasmo (talk • contribs) 20:07, 18 March 2013 (UTC)

Removed: Uncited

Styles that sometimes use swing rhythms include:

• Early rock and roll such as Bill Haley's "Shake, Rattle and Roll", "Rock Around the Clock", Buddy Holly's "That'll Be The Day", ZZ Top's "La Grange", The Doors' "Roadhouse Blues", and Elvis Presley's "Jailhouse Rock".
• Country and western
• Blues, especially 1930 Swing jazz-infused Jump blues¨
• Disco
• Ragtime
• Big band jazz
• Contemporary R&B. Examples include Chain Reaction by Diana Ross, The Way You Make Me Feel by Michael Jackson, and Forgive Me by Leona Lewis.
• Pop. Examples include Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go by Wham!, Cherish by Madonna and The Sweet Escape by Gwen Stefani.
• Some types of modern rock, particularly punk rock, pop-punk, and alternative rock. Recent examples include "Holiday" by Green Day, "Tarantula" by Smashing Pumpkins, and Seether's "Fake It".
• Recently, some forms of electronic music, especially drum & bass and breakbeat, have utilized a swing rhythm. An excellent example would be the drum & bass song "Another Planet" by Pendulum or "The Bouncedown" by the artist Strider.

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Hyacinth (talk) 10:07, 16 March 2010 (UTC)

3:2 ratio

For writing notes in a 3:2 ratio, which this article references, how can we do it without violating note durations?? The best way is with quintuplets (3+2=5.) Specifically, a dotted quintuplet followed by an undotted quintuplet (in x/4 time signatures this is a dotted eighth quintuplet followed by an eighth quintuplet.) Any discussion on what this article should say?? Georgia guy (talk) 19:14, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Sounds like original research to me. We should take no view on what the best way is, we should just report what the authorities say. Andrewa (talk) 01:08, 9 July 2011 (UTC)