Swing

There is a lot to be said about swing, mostly because the music it is danced to is different from other kinds of music in an important respect: the music has swing feel. You will see in great detail what this means.

Swing feel

The music used for swing dancing has what is called swing feel. This holds for Lindy, done to old jazz music, Jive, danced to fast contemporary music, and West Coast Swing, which uses blues and rhythm 'n' blues music. One way of describing this swing feel is to say that there is an uneven division of the beat, with the first subdivision long and the second short. This means that every beat - quarter note - gets subdivided once and that the split point - which in for instance chacha music would be an eighth note, that is exactly in the middle - is shifted back a bit.

You can take a melody which has quarter notes and eighth notes, and give it a swing feel, by using these swung eighths. For example, George Benson sings Baby workout with ordinary - or straight - eighths, while Jackie Wilson sings the same song with swung eighths. Commentary.

Here is an example I cooked up: a rhythm 'n' blues kind of groove, with straight eighths (movie: large, small), and the same, with swing feel (movie: large, small). The clearest example of the difference is in the bass line: with straight eighths you hear a stream of evenly spaced notes (midi), while in the swing rhythm every second note is shifted back a little (midi). You hear the same happening in the drum: the hi-hat - which is the only instrument in the drum set that plays consistently eighth notes; the bass drum and the snare only occasionally play other than on the beat - has every other hit shifted back in the swing rhythm (straight: midi; swing: midi).

Swung eighth notes are pretty much at 2/3 of the beat. That is, there is a note that takes 2/3 of the beat, followed by one that takes 1/3 of the beat. Another way of looking at it is the following: it is as if the basic beat is subdivided in three, but the first division is not played. You can perform the following experiment: start saying one and a two and a one and a two and keep repeating that. Now say it once more but pronounce the "and" only mentally. You are now saying out loud one a two a one a two in swing rhythm. Movie.

There are in fact examples where swing music uses, incidentally or throughout, a true division of the beat in three. This is usually not in the vocal melody, but in the drums, of sometimes a piano or guitar part. Example: Angry woman by Roomful of blues, or Stuck with you by Huey Lewis and the News.

Swing versus 12/8 rhythm or eighth note triplets

Based on these observations such as above, it would seem logical to notate a swing song with the sheet music having lots of triplets. Another possibility is to use 12/8 rhythm.

There is a problem with this. Often, singers and melody players will use a fraction for the first subdivision that is shorter than two thirds, while drummers will often use a fraction that is longer, coming close to three fourths. Thus, writing triplets is really an approximation of the truth, and people writing out swing music will often just write straight eighths, and put an instruction at the top of the page that the eighths are to be played swung.

Who plays the swing feel?

The swing rhythm is most of all felt, but if you want to pin down which instrument produces it most clearly, there are the following choices

• the melody, including the sung melody
• the drum
• the bass
• the guitar or piano

Swing rhythm versus dotted eighths: Jive

In slower music, such as is used for West Coast Swing, it is easy enough to hear whether a beat is subdivided in two, three, or four, even if not all division points are played explicitly. At the high speeds used for Jive and Lindy this is not at all simple.

Thus, the highest authorities on ballroom dancing have been proclaiming that jive, the international style ballroom variant of East Coast Swing or Lindy, is danced to a rhythm with the beat divded in a three-to-one ratio. The book states that the triple-step rhythm in jive is to be timed as 3/4, 1/4, 1. Such music simply does not exist, and in fact dancing such a subdivision is near impossible. Close inspection of jive music shows that in fact it uses, like slower swing music, a division in the ratio of two-to-one, something which is much easier to dance to. Example: Trickle trickle by the Manhattan Transfer.

Here is an example of a jive groove (midi). It has the following characteristics, which you will see in many jive songs:

• The bass plays only the quarter notes, that is, the beats, and only very occasionally the inbetween notes that determine the swing feel.
• The drum now plays the swing rhythm on the ride cymbal instead of the hi-hat.
• The piano plays a 12/8 pattern, that is, it fills in the intermediate subdivision of the beat.
• The brass parts also occasionally play a true triplet.

Just to show that jive does not use a 3/4, 1/4 subdivision of the beat, here is the drum part of the above groove, but with precisely such a rhythm (midi).

The only dance that really uses the three-to-one ratio is Samba; samba music typically plays all of the divisions of the beat, and accents the first and fourth. Example: La Isla bonita by Madonna, Love is in the air by John Paul Young.

Slow blues music

West Coast Swing is typically danced between 100 and 140 bpm, though sometimes as slow as 90, and as fast as 180. However, the blues music it is danced to can go even slower and faster. Example: T-bone Walker Call it stormy monday.

Dancing the swing feel

Just as most swing music does not use all of the three subdivisions of the beat, swing dancing typically only uses the first and third subdivision of the beat.

Swing feel versus straight eighths

Traditionally, swing music had the characteristic swing feel. Nowadays, swing is often also danced to music with an even division of the beat, that is, in straight eighths. Example: Mustang Sally by the Commitments or by Wilson Pickett.

East Coast Swing music in country western often has a straight eighths feel too. Example: Meanwhile back at the ranch and The Wheel keeps on Rollin' by Asleep at the Wheel.

There are songs that sound like good jives, even though they have a straight feel. Example: Jukebox Jive by the Rubettes.

Is everything with swing feel swing music?

If a question is stated this obviously, the answer is probably no, don't you think?

There are several kinds of music where you can detect a swing feel, yet it is not swing music.

• First of course there is music that would have been swing music if it had been in the right tempo range. For example, in the upper range of swing tempi, where Lindy dancers flourish, there are songs that would be good quickstep music. They are jazz pieces, and so naturally have swing feel. For example, Sing sing sing by Bennie Goodman is both a good Lindy and Quickstep song. If you play music even faster than that, the only possible dance becomes Balboa. Examples: Sweet Georgia Brown by Count Basie, or Got my mojo working by James Cotton.
• Some country waltzes have swung eights, and likewise some two-steps.
• There is also music that has the right tempo, but somehow not the right feel. Old style country music is a good example of this. Example: Murder on music row by George Strait and Allan Jackson.
• Finally, some music has the right tempo, and almost the right feel: Shag music. In fact, many swing dancers see nothing wrong with dancing (West Coast) swing to such songs.

Phrasing

The patterns in swing dance are mostly six counts long, with a number of eight count patterns mixed in. The latter sort is more common in Lindy, and less so in East Coast Swing

This file is part of "Feel The Beat", a musicology course for dancers, by Victor Eijkhout (victor at eijkhout dot net), who appreciates being sent additions or corrections on the material in this course. Copyright 2000/1 Victor Eijkhout.

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Last modified on: Sunday, May 6, 2001.