It’s common among non-jazz musicians to think of “swing” rhythms as having a triplet-like feel, and it’s equally common among jazz players to regard that as hopelessly incorrect. That conflict over swing style has been widely discussed elsewhere, so I won’t rehash it here.
But there’s another layer to the swing/triplets issue: It’s important to understand that real swing rhythms are essentially duple. The primary subdivision of the beat is into two parts, even though those parts aren’t equal in length.
So, writing or playing lots of triplets is a common mistake that non-jazz musicians make when they are trying to imitate a swing sound. That’s not to say that triplets can’t or don’t exist in swing rhythms, but they aren’t the underlying subdivision, and in most cases are best used sparingly.
For example, this can be played to sound like an authentic swing/jazz line:
And even this notation, while problematic, can be translated into something authentic-sounding:
But, to someone who knows jazz style well, this one never quite sounds like swing:
It might pass for a shuffle or something else, but it’s hard to make it swing.
When a well-written swing line does include a triplet, a fluent jazz player might play it to sound distinctly un-triplety:
That approach (one of several possibilities) might make sense to a jazz player because they are stretching the downbeat note, and letting the subsequent notes fall later in the beat—a very similar approach to playing a pair of swung eighth notes.
Written or improvised melodies, background figures, drum fills, and other things that are supposed to swing in an authentic way should avoid excessive triplets. Extensive listening and study of great jazz writing, interpretation, and improvisation are crucial to understanding real jazz swing style.
I’m pleased to announce a new release of the Note Image Generator, my web app for quickly creating images of notes on staves (such as you might use for fingering charts, note identification flash cards, etc.).
I’ve added some new features for all users, but also some special features for those kind enough to donate to the Note Image Generator (there’s a PayPal link near the bottom of the page).
New features include:
More bar line options.
A new handwriting-type “jazz” notation font. Plus a bunch more new fonts for donors!
Parentheses around accidentals.
Enharmonic note spellings for donors.
More precise image sizing options for donors.
Various bug fixes and speed/stability/usability improvements.
The first set was devoted to Vinny Golia and Bertram Turetzky, both of whom have played together in San Diego many times, giving them, as Turetzky announced in one of the generous introductions that preceded each of their 5 selections, a kind of ESP. Unlike Dana Reason, who brought plenty of written music to use (or ignore, as the case may have been) for her set, Golia and Turetzky played freely improvised music.
Golia had so many clarinets, flutes, and saxophones propped up next to him or in a travel bag that Turetzky joked that the real Museum was the one next to Golia. Each work began with Golia pondering which wind to play, making a selection, and then soloing, to be joined shortly afterward by Turetzky. The description of their music making as “ESP” was not far off the mark, given the duo’s uncanny ability to complement each other while spontaneously creating melodies and textures.
Golia has a penchant for playing multiphonics, alternating the highest and lowest registers of his chosen instruments (clarinet, contrabass clarinet, contrabass flute, or piccolo). At other times, he pulled out different varieties of ethnic flutes, from which issued trills, microtones, and spastic twittering melodies.
Two months ago I introduced the Fingering diagram builder, something that I hoped people would find useful for quickly and easily creating fingering diagrams for woodwind instruments. Since then, something over 1,000 fingering diagrams have been downloaded, which I think is a nice start.
Many of those have been saxophone fingerings, and I attribute this to some kind mentions among the saxophone-blogger community (thanks Doron, Eric, David, Neal, Alistair, and Anton!).
Now I’m pleased to announce the new-and-of-course-improved version 0.2. Go take it for a spin, or read on about the new goodies:
I occasionally teach a university course in jazz improvisation, geared toward beginning improvisers. Sometimes I think prospective students are afraid to sign up because they don’t consider themselves already to be musically creative. On the other hand, I have some students enroll in the class with unrealistic expectations about the results, thinking that they will learn all the tricks and secrets and be ready for some fantasy gig.
It doesn’t make sense to avoid taking French 101 because “I don’t speak any French”—you’re missing the point of an introductory course. But it also isn’t likely that by the end of the semester you’ll be ready to wow everyone at the smartest dinner parties in Paris.
The good-news/bad-news is that most of what happens in a beginning improvisation class doesn’t feel creative or spontaneous at all. In my course, we do a lot of drilling of scales, arpeggios, patterns, and “licks,” and then trying to execute them successfully in a pre-planned way over a set of chord changes. The same happens in your first-semester French class: you memorize some basic phrases by rote, and try to use them in the right order in very structured “conversations.” At some point you get some very restricted freedom: you have to say what color le chat is, but you get to pick if he is noir or blanc. Similarly, in my class you might get to decide which of your two memorized “two-five-one” licks to use over the first four bars of the bridge, or whether to start that digital pattern on the root of the chord or the fifth, but that’s about it. Limited options don’t mean you aren’t really improvising (or speaking French), it just means you don’t have a lot of vocabulary to work with yet.
I know that this rubs some improvisers the wrong way: I shouldn’t be regurgitating pre-packaged licks! I should be developing my own “thing!” For those people, I suggest you read a biography of any great improvising musician and find out what they did in the early stages of developing their thing. Or just try speaking some French: no need for grammar study or vocabulary lists! Do your thing!
For those who consider themselves creativity-deficient: you can learn to improvise in a systematic way—it’s not something you’re born with (or without). I’ll teach you some existing vocabulary and some techniques for making your own, and then you can start putting them together in ways that make sense to you. You’re being creative!
For those hoping to learn some “tricks:” the only useful trick I can teach you is to take the techniques from the class and hit the practice rooms. There aren’t any shortcuts to improvising well. It will require hard work over the course of many years. But the process can be a lot of fun!
