Chuck Israels wrote:
Darcy Argue wrote:
Even in an amateur situation -- *especially* in an amateur situation --
my experience is that the triplet indication just makes things worse. IMO, you would be better to tell them *not* to try to swing the eighth
notes in an exaggerated manner. The only thing they should worry about
are offbeat eighth notes that are either followed by a rest or tied to
another note. Those notes (and no others!) should be delayed -- "laid
back" -- and the amount of delay depends on the tempo. If they can
manage to do that one thing reasonably consistently, everything else
can be sung absolutely straight and the choir will sound 100% hipper
than they would if they tried to adopt an artificial quarter-eighth
triplet swing feel.
I am 100% in agreement with Darcy on this, and it is one of the unfortunate shortcomings of institutionalized jazz education that this misinformation continues to be perpetrated as "gospel". In fact, it is more useful to suggest that all eighth note passages that do not fit Darcy's clear description of anticipations should be played more or less as you would play the same passages if they had been written by Bach. "Swinging" strings of eighth notes separates things into groups of two, strong - weak - strong - weak, kills any sense of line, and sounds plain silly. Jazz musicians do not play this way.
Chuck
How do they get that long-short feeling then? Or are my ears deceiving me and all those recordings I've heard of all the big bands are really playing even 8th-notes?
I could have sworn there was a difference between Basie and Bach, but then all those experimental drugs back at the Home might have muddied my thinking.
-- David H. Bailey [EMAIL PROTECTED]
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