page_title: Swing (jazz performance style)
section_title: Swing as a rhythmic style
hierarchical_section_title: Swing (jazz performance style) / Swing as a rhythmic style
caption_attribution_description: English: Shuffle triplet-like performance. Created by Hyacinth (talk) 21:19, 28 July 2008 in Sibelius.
context_page_description: In music, the term swing has two main uses. Colloquially, it is used to describe the quality or impression or effect of a changing pattern in a propulsive rhythm created by the musical interaction between the performers, especially when the music prompts a visceral response such as foot-tapping or head-nodding, which sense is called "groove". The term, and swung note and swung rhythm, is also used more specifically, to refer to a technique that involves alternately lengthening and shortening the first and second consecutive notes in the two part pulse-divisions in a beat.
context_section_description: In swing rhythm, the pulse is divided unequally, such that certain subdivisions (typically either eighth note or sixteenth note subdivisions) alternate between long and short durations. Certain music of the Baroque and Classical era is played using notes inégales, which is analogous to swing. In shuffle rhythm, the first note in a pair may be twice (or more) the duration of the second note. In swing rhythm, the ratio of the first note's duration to the second note's duration can take on a range of magnitudes. The first note of each pair is often understood to be twice as long as the second, implying a triplet feel, but in practice the ratio is less definitive and is often much more subtle.In traditional jazz, swing is typically applied to eighth notes. In other genres, such as funk and jazz-rock, swing is often applied to sixteenth notes.
  In most jazz music, especially of the big band era and later, the second and fourth beats of a 4/4 measure are emphasized over the first and third, and the beats are lead-in—main-beat couplets (dah-DUM, dah-DUM....).  The "dah" anticipates, or leads into, the "DUM."  The "dah" lead-in may or may not be audible.  It may be occasionally accented for phrasing or dynamic purposes.  
  The instruments of a swing rhythm section express swing in different ways from each other, and the devices evolved as the music developed.  During the early development of swing music, the bass was often played with lead-in—main-note couplets, often with a percussive sound.  Later, the lead-in note was dropped but incorporated into the physical rhythm of the bass player to help keep the beat "solid."  Similarly, the rhythm guitar was played with the lead-in beat in the player's physical rhythm but inaudible.  The piano was played with a variety of devices for swing.  Chord patterns played in the rhythm of a dotted-eight—sixteenth couplet were characteristic of boogie-woogie playing (sometimes also used in boogie-woogie horn section playing).  The "swing bass" left hand, used by James P. Johnson, Fats Waller, and Earl Hines, used a bass note on the first and third beats, followed by a mid-range chord to emphasize the second and fourth beats.  The lead-in beats were not audible, but expressed in the motion of the left arm.  Swing bass piano also put the first and third beats a role anticipatory to the emphasized second and fourth beats in two-beat figures.   As swing music developed, the role of the piano in the ensemble changed to emphasize accents and fills; these were often played on the lead-in to the main beat, adding a punch to the rhythm.  Count Basie's style was sparse, played as accompaniment to the horn sections and soloists.  The bass and snare drums started the swing era as the main timekeepers, with the snare usually used for either lead-ins or emphasis on the second and fourth beats.  It was soon found that the high-hat cymbal could add a new dimension to the swing expressed by the drum kit when played in a two-beat "ti-tshhh-SH" figure, with the "ti" the lead-in to the "tshhh" on the first and third beats, and the "SH"  the emphasized second and fourth beats.  With that high-hat figure, the drummer expressed three elements of swing: the lead-in with the "ti," the continuity of the rhythmic pulse between the beats with the "tshhh," and the emphasis on the second and fourth beats with the "SH".  Early examples of that high-hat figure were recorded by the drummer Chick Webb.  Jo Jones carried the high-hat style a step further, with a more continuous-sounding "t'shahhh-uhh" two beat figure while reserving the bass and snare drums for accents.  The changed role of the drum kit away from the heavier style of the earlier drumming placed more emphasis on the role of the bass in holding the rhythm.
  Horn sections and soloists added inflection and dynamics to the rhythmic toolbox, "swinging" notes and phrases.  One of the characteristic horn section sounds of swing jazz was a section chord played with a strong attack, a slight fade, and a quick accent at the end, expressing the rhythmic pulse between beats.  T
caption: Shuffle triplet-like performance About this soundplay (help·info).
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