Swing Quavers - Introduction and Exercises

Final Section: Swing Quavers

Now we come to the final section of the book where we deal with swing quavers. By now, we're very familiar with quavers and we know how they work:
1 and 2 and 3 and 4.

Understanding Swing Quavers

With swing quavers, they're written exactly the same, but they're played differently, with a different dialect. Think of it like this:

• English vs. American: They are both written the same on the page but sound quite different because of their dialects.

Swing quavers sound like this:
Bum ba bum ba bum ba bum ba bum.

Although they're written as:
dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum dum.

Basic Swing Rhythm

So what we do is:

• Lengthen the first note,
• Shorten the second note of each pair of quavers.

This creates a rhythm of:
Long, short, long, short, long, short, long, short, long.

That's it in its basic form.

Add Some Swagger

When you play swing quavers, you don't just do that. You put a little bit of weight on the shorter note.

• This gives it a bit of swagger, making it sound more like rock and roll than jazz.

Scale Context

In the scale context, if we're playing a scale, let's say of G major, in swing or tonguing, we play:
as opposed to what is written, but we play or slurring across the beat, which gives it a swing articulation.

If you played it without this attention to style, you'd be playing the correct swing values, but it wouldn't feel right. The weight needs to go on the shorter of the two quavers.

Exercises

Exercise 2

For example, we're using a fairly light tonguing technique to achieve this.

Exercise 3

This is a variation on the G major scale. Play it:

1. First of all without the accidentals (the sharps in brackets).
2. Then, we can add those later to make it sound more colorful.

So without them, it sounds like:
(Insert sound example)

But for a bit of color, we can add the chromatics.

Exercise 4

This illustrates how a simple swing phrase is written and how it should be played with a triplet feel.

What's written should be played like this:
(Insert sound example)

You'll know it's meant to be played swing because you'll see the indication with swing or with a swing feel. Usually, it's followed by the swing symbol, which is:

• Two quavers = crotchet quaver with a triplet bracket above.

This is the standard accepted swing symbol nowadays.

In the past, sometimes composers wrote swing out as dotted rhythms.

• For example, if you look at Exercise 1, look at the third bar:
  • We see dum da dum da dum da dum da dum which would be played although written.

This was an older way of writing a swing feel that appears in many older copies of tunes.

To keep things simple, nowadays we tend to write swing quavers as regular quavers, but with the swing symbol.