Re: [Harp-L] Swing vs. Shuffle

[Winslow Yerxa <winslowyerxa@xxxxxxxxx>]

Slim offers a good description of shuffle, but I make a distinction between shuffle and swing.

What they have in common is that the beat divides unequally - the first "half" of the beat is longer than the second "half."

With shuffle, the beat divides into three equal parts. You can state all three parts, but most of the time you divide it in 2, with the first part taking up 2/3 of the beat and the second part taking up the last 1/3.

Swing *can* do that, but doesn't always. Jazz bassist/composer Charles Mingus made this point in some of his writings. And if you listen to jazz records, you'll hear some players using the 2/3 + 1/3 formula, and others pushing the second part of the beat early, almost to the 1/2 mark while others push it late, almost to the 3/4 mark. Sometimes you can hear al three approaches from different soloists on the same song.

There's another element to swing that is much harder to define. I remember being in a department store and hearing, over the piped-in music, Nat King Cole singing a standard; I no longer remember the specific song. Then a violin takes a solo break (I later found out that the violinist was Stuff Smith). The violin swung like crazy even though he was playing all on-the-beat notes, not dividing the beat at all. It was something abotu the way he was attacking the notes. I've heard the same thing in Louis Armstrong's live video of "Dinah," recorded in Copenhagen in the early 1930s.


Winslow

 
Winslow Yerxa
Author, Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-0-470-33729-5
            Harmonica Basics For Dummies, ASIN B005KIYPFS
            Blues Harmonica For Dummies, ISBN 978-1-1182-5269-7
Resident Harmonica Expert, bluesharmonica.com
Instructor, Jazzschool for Music Study and Performance


________________________________
 From: Slim Heilpern <slim@xxxxxxxxxx>
To: Elizabeth Hess <TrackHarpL@xxxxxxxxxxxx>; harp-l harp-l <harp-l@xxxxxxxxxx> 
Sent: Friday, January 11, 2013 6:33 AM
Subject: Re: [Harp-L] Swing vs. Shuffle
 
Someone else can hopefully provide a better description, but I'll take a shot at it...

Starting with 4 beats to the bar, divide each beat in 3. Count it out in slow motion: 123 123 123 123... Now, leave out the '2' (but leave rhythmic space for it): 1_3 1_3 1_3 1_3..... Now, _accent_ the 3 and you have the basis for a shuffle. 

Swing is similar, but it tends to have fewer of the '3' accents actually stated - a more relaxed feel, looks more like this: 1__ 1_3 1__ 1_3, with the accent on '3'. 

Using music notation, the actual figures I described would be written with a dotted eighth note (the '1's) followed by a sixteenth note (the '3's), but it's usually just written out as straight eighth notes to avoid clutter, with the groove stated as swing or shuffle, or not stated at all.

Different styles of music have different formulas for playing a shuffle groove (with respect to instrumentation), but the rhythmic basis is the same. In a band situation, when playing a shuffle, often one instrument (piano, guitar, etc..) will tend to play a staccato chord on the offbeats (the '3's) to accent them. 

Hope that helps...

- Slim.

www.SlideManSlim.com

On Jan 11, 2013, at 4:35 AM, Elizabeth Hess wrote:

> What is the difference between "swing" and "shuffle", if any?
> 
> Elizabeth H. (aka "Tin Lizzie")
>