Only for arithmetically inclined nitpickers I want to belabour the matter of subdivisions of the beat. This is an advanced topic; before you study this, please make sure you have seen the introduction to music notation, in particular the section about triplets; it would also help if you had first read the sections on swing, chacha, and samba.
Now to business.
We have the concepts of
First look at subdivisions of a quarter note.
The division
in four sixteenths is a subdivision of that in two eights. That is because
two sixteenths fit in one eighth note. One way you can see this is by giving
names to all the subdivisions. Some people count 1e&a2. The chacha
steps then fall on the 1, the &, and the 2. The
samba steps fall on the 1, the a, and again the 2.
If we try to fit swing into this, we run into a problem: the triple step is based on a subdivision in three, not in four. Some people pronounce the swing subdivisions as 1&a2. The steps in a swing triple step are then on the 1, the a, and the 2. Can you see the confusion? Both swing and samba step on a beat subdivision named a, but those subdivisions are not the same. In swing the a comes at 2/3 of the beat, whereas in samba it comes at 3/4. Likewise, chacha steps on a subdivision named &, but that is not the same & as the one in the swing count. The chacha & is halfway between two beats, and you actually step on that subdivision; the swing & is at 1/3 of the beat, and you don't step on it, it is only a counting aid.
For even more confusion, swing is also danced to music that can not traditionally be called "swing music". In that music there are no instruments playing triplets: they play at most eighth notes (sixteenth notes are rare in swing music), that is, the 1&2 rhythm. The problem with this is that now all of a sudden, in order to dance to the music, the "ple" part of a triple-step falls on the &, and no longer on the a.
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.