Straight against swung & Harmonic Variations

Music Lesson: Exploring Rhythmic Feel and Harmony

There's tunes, you know, it's often played with that kind of straight kind of feel. But you can throw in, kind of, you know, play a swung feel against the straight, which I find can be really fun as well.

Swung vs. Straight Feel

• Straight Feel: Start off playing a straight rhythm.
• Swung Feel: Then you heard me go into the more swung, shuffly feel in the middle of that before coming back into the straight feel.

This can be really effective, which I sometimes do in this tune, particularly when I'm using tenths in the left hand.

Using Tenths

And that's another thing you can do. So, something like this:

Throwing around a few more tenths in that version.

Maybe looking back to more of that kind of stride-influenced idea that we looked at in "Somebody Changed the Lock."

Chord Movements

This kind of thing is a really nice movement towards that V chord, which is essentially a V7, but with the fifth in the bass. You will have also noticed a few little chord substitutions in there. Rather than doing the standard one for a bar, then five to a bar, actually going around the houses, going around a sort of 1 6 2 5 turnaround, which works really nicely.

And again, this can set up that slightly more Cuban feel. You could put a cheeky little 2:5 in before going to chord four.

Understanding the 2:5 Transition

By 2:5, I mean in the key going to the chord of B flat:

• II V would be a C.
• That's an F.

So, preceding the F7, which you'd normally play in the sequence with a C minor.

Example Progression

• Something like this, then maybe a cheeky little E flat 7 there leading back to the F.
• Or you could play the second bar of the B flat as a B flat minor.

Changing the harmony up very quickly.

Incidentally, on that 2:5 going to the B flat, you could play the voicing like that, which is a very kind of Dr. John thing to do.

Then maybe play the B flat as A major seven. There you go.

Final Thoughts

I think we've looked at quite a lot of aspects on this tipertina. I mean, you can take it anywhere. You could extend those harmonies in all kinds of more jazz directions.

• Maybe look at some other feels.
• Indeed, Booker kind of plays it as a shuffle in one of his versions.

I'd love to hear what you do with the tune, so feel free to upload a copy and send a link over. It'd be great to see.

Cool. Let's look at something else.