Re: [Harp-L] Re: Swing

[Ken Deifik <kenneth.d@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Great freaking post!!

Well, thank you, my dude.

>  I've been wrestling with finding a way to explain swinging, or "off the 
> beat' playing"  for ages.  I've always, "just felt it" but many folks 
> that I try to teach, don't feel it.  Thank you for sharing your thoughts 
> on the matter.  They will help me explain in the future.

I once spent an afternoon with Louis Y. Brown, a fabulous character who was 
Jerry Lewis' musical director from BEFORE Martin and Lewis.  Over a billion 
times more amusing than his boss, this guy was.

He had made his bones in the Swing era, and those kinda guys lived and 
breathed that feel.

I brilliantly told him my ideas about how swing was about rhythmic 
displacements, and he looked at me like I was nuts and said "Well of course 
that's what it is."  I'm a bozo, it is my burden, I live with it.

I think though, in the end the explanation comes first and then the 
demonstration.  Here's what it feels like if it doesn't swing - here's what 
it feels like when it does.  (There's a million ways to swing any phrase, 
so that's lesson three.)

Some people get it right off the bat.  Others not, and you have to wonder 
if they ever will, but I think it's worth trying to teach it even then 
because I want to think that nobody's hopeless.

I practice swinging, by the way.  It is not an afterthought, it's the main 
course.  When I find practice tracks that I like I rarely practice 
licks.  I practice swinging one, two and three note phrases.

That's way more valuable to me than practicing long lines, which I can do 
in my sleep.  After 20 minutes of practicing swinging verrrrry simple 
phrases my long lines swing better anyway.