logo

spacerxDrumset3 Logo img spacerxFree Menu1 Free Menu2 Free Menu3 Free Menu4 Donate

spacerx img Basic Dancebeat #4 (Alteration): "SWING"
spacerx img

spacerx imgDrums and the 'Swing Beat'

WHAT IS A SWING BEAT?
Swing is basically a 'Shuffle' beat. (See dance beat #4 in the 'Basic Dance Beats' lesson.)

CLUE:
The only real difference between Swing & Shuffle is ONE NOTE on the cymbal line! That ONE CYMBAL makes a BIG difference in the overall 'feel' and 'flow' of the music being played around it. Swing is really an accelerated 'Shuffle Beat'! We drop one cymbal note with each repetition of the rhythm pattern. This allows us to increase the tempos to blinding speeds!

SPECIAL NOTE: Both, the Swing Beat and the Shuffle Beat are actually accelerated versions of Dancebeat #2, the Blues Beat. In other words, by eliminating specific notes on the cymbal line in each repetition of the pattern, we can accelerate (speed-up) Blues Beat tunes to extreme tempos.

WHERE DID THESE 'STREET' TERMS
'SWING' & 'SHUFFLE' ORIGINATE?

THE EARLY 'JAZZ' ERA LED TO 'SWING'.
Swing and Shuffle rhythms have always existed in a mathematical way. They are both VERY basic in nature. Most of the music from the 1920s was based on what we now call 'Swing'. The beginnings of what many call the 'Jazz Age' occurred in the 1920's. A predominance of music from that time was based on what later became known as the 'Swing' beat. Some people may still occasionally use the street term 'Jazz' beat when referring to the 'Swing' beat.

NOTE:
Street terms often tend to mean different things to different people. Each new generation will add their own twist to existing terms. As time passes, a whole new definition and meaning may emerge. This tends to be the case with terms like 'Jazz', 'Swing' and 'Shuffle'.

SWING BEAT: (BRIEF HISTORY):
The actual 'Swing Era' was ushered in with the Big Bands of the late 1930's and 1940's. It appears to be uncertain which musician or group of musicians coined the street term 'Swing' but I suspect it may have been any or all of the following, plus any number of unknowns.

  1. Woody Herman

  2. Glen Miller

  3. The Dorseys' (Tommy & Jimmy)

  4. Bing Crosby

  5. Frank Sinatra

ALL of the above names were BIG innovators of what is now called the 'Swing Era" which began sometime in the 1930's and lasted into the mid-1950's.

SHUFFLE BEAT HISTORY:
Shuffle seems to have grown out of Swing (or vice versa) in the late 1930s and early 1940s. The black musicians of that era get most of the credit for popularizing the beat we now call 'Shuffle'. Early R&B and 'Boogie Woogie' were largely based on the Shuffle beat, which is really just a laid back, slower and more 'funky' form of Swing. I am told there was a 'Shuffle' dance (very much like a Michael Jackson 'Moon Walk'). The Shuffle dance was usually done to songs containing the rhythm we now call Shuffle. Actually, the beat took its name from that dance known as 'The Shuffle'.

Also, the shuffle beat and early shuffle style music, based in a 12-bar 'blues' progression, tends to be acclaimed as the 'seed' or 'early cousin' from which our entire modern 'ROCK' era was born.

spacerx img Now, learn to play the 'SWING" beat!

spacerx img PART II: "SWING"

spacerx img Copyright Bill Powelson 1965-1996-2008-2014 @ all rights reserved. spacerx img


spacerxInstructor's Guide link imgspacerxSeeds of Rhythmn link imgspacerxBP's Other Booksimg
spacerxdrum instructor's guide cov img spacerxseeds of rhythm cover spacerxopen office ebook templates