Swing is a core rhythmic idea of jazz music, so unless you're only looking to play a specific kind of jazz that doesn't have many swing influences (such as latin music like Bossa Nova) then yeah it's a necessary skill to have on tue same level as improvising or playing by ear. It isn't as hard as it seems, it's probably one of the easier parts of learning to play jazz, you'll get the hang of it in no time. To help, try to listen to a lot more swing music and try to copy the rhythms you hear as you hear them, don't worry about how the rhythms are literally notated or what they literally should be, just listen and feel and mimic. The more immersed you are in swing music the more natural swing will come to you. Also, work on triplet subdivisions if you haven't already.
“Swing” is a relative term, but if you want command over weight and emphasis on notes, learning how to work in compound meter is helpful. OP is going to discover this eventually, even if “swing” isn’t the objective or desired genre.
If you plan on playing swing tunes, yes. And it's actually not a bad question. The swing rhythms have a lot of context and performance practice that also requires consideration if you want to sound good playing in the swing style. Besides the rhythmic studies, you'll also need to think about picking techniques, transcription of a like instrument(s) and hours of careful and analytical listening.
You might also consider that there's a reason guys like Bela Fleck and Noam Pikelny choose to play mainly straight-eighth rhythms.
This road is difficult. But if you find a way to make it work, the world is your oyster, my friend.
Good Luck!
Swing is not the displacement of the upbeat. Though it's used like that in music theory and in compositions to dictate style, to swing is is really to have a good time feel. Yes you need to learn to swing. Whether you're playing swung eighths or straight 16ths it needs to swing.
I'd rephrase that: "swing is not (only) about the placement in time".
And yes, there are not enough people who know/teach that. And it gets worse when they confuse swing with shuffle.
I suppose you're right. quite literally swing is 100% about the placement of notes in time. I think I'm trying to highlight that this applies to straight rhythms just as much as "swung" rhythms
>quite literally swing is 100% about the placement of notes in time.
There are other factors too, accents, note choices, starting & ending phrases, "getting away from the one"...
I think it depends on what you mean by jazz. If you were thinking Bela fleck, his music is improvisatory and often gets called jazz, but has no real swing elements to it, and most people probably wouldn’t say it’s jazz, although they might say it’s jazzy.
If you were thinking about “early jazz“ where the banjo was used asa backing instrument, the. we are talking a Proto swing feel, but yes, you’d want to deep dive into what that feels like.
Also if you’re playing banjo already, you might be closer than you think. For instance, country swing and bluegrass swing are already things.
if you look at a record like Willie Nelson’s Stardust, I would say, there’s very little swing, feel on it, but still in my mind stands as a great contribution to the great American songbook, and in a weird way is one of my favourite jazz records.
I’m no virtuoso by any stretch, but I’d argue that you want to be able to “swing” to effectively express yourself in any musical medium be it jazz, rock, pop, whatever. It serves not only to develop a strong sense of time, but also gives one’s rhythm an elasticity that allows for greater rhythmic improvisation. Furthermore, it’ll keep your playing from sounding stiff. Get some of the human element in there, otherwise might as well be generating songs via AI.
Just play how you play with a 4/4 rhythm, then change the beat to swing afterward. This gave me a great understanding of the difference. I've also found that starting a solo or focusing your notes on the 2nd and 4th beat can be very helpful. Eventually you'll want to "lose" the rhythm altogether to make your phrasings feel unattached or "out" as they say. Then bring it back to rhythmic voicings again.
Controversial: only drummers *need* to learn how to swing. Soloists should develop their own personal approach and relationship to the beat on a spectrum from swing to straight. Doesn’t hurt to learn how to swing though, but the end result should be YOU.
Are you looking to play great american song book tunes on banjo? Or are you looking to play banjo in a jazz context with other jazz musicians? If you want to play jazz on anything you gotta get used to the swing. And that's really not that hard. I assume you like the music you want to play, so getting the swing is as simple as listening a lot. but this should be simple if it's music you like...if not I'd recommend learning to play stuff you like.
You are either stupid and or insanely lazy if you are asking this question. If you were trying to be a car mechanic do you think you would need to know how a car works in order to fix it? I would add that asking this question entails you don't know what you want from it which would probably be a good first place start before asking lazy questions.
Edit: if you are trying to play swing music or any music with a history of it swinging it will only benefit you to learn to swing.
Absolutely.
In the early swing bands, the (tenor) banjo originated the role that was later taken up by the archtop acoustic guitar: four-on-the-floor comping.
The move away from the Banjo was due to a number of reasons, including the ride and hi-hat cymbals becoming standard parts of the drum set and technological improvements to microphones and other recording/amplification equipment.
Not if you play jazz fusion banjo.
I'm not one to say jazz "should" be anything. But I'm about to!
Back in new Orleans the birthplace of mahavishnu style jazz swing is not as important as sheer decibels and overdrive tube amps
Is this r/jazzcirclejerk? Feels that way lately.
you do need to learn to swing. Learn how to play the banjo and then learn how to incorporate jazz ideas
Swing is a core rhythmic idea of jazz music, so unless you're only looking to play a specific kind of jazz that doesn't have many swing influences (such as latin music like Bossa Nova) then yeah it's a necessary skill to have on tue same level as improvising or playing by ear. It isn't as hard as it seems, it's probably one of the easier parts of learning to play jazz, you'll get the hang of it in no time. To help, try to listen to a lot more swing music and try to copy the rhythms you hear as you hear them, don't worry about how the rhythms are literally notated or what they literally should be, just listen and feel and mimic. The more immersed you are in swing music the more natural swing will come to you. Also, work on triplet subdivisions if you haven't already.
“Swing” is a relative term, but if you want command over weight and emphasis on notes, learning how to work in compound meter is helpful. OP is going to discover this eventually, even if “swing” isn’t the objective or desired genre.
Do you not want people to say “that guy is swinging” about you?
From a branch Like an Ape Who doesn't They cd say ure shwinging too
This the most Reddit question I've seen posted here all year. Well done, sir!
Doesn’t matter what instrument you play if you want to swing you need to learn to swing.
After u swing u swung A fancy kinda swing wd be swank Swing is also funky so A fancy funky swing tune wd be A swanky stinky swing swank swung number
Man, It don't mean a thing of your ain't got that swing...
Yeah man
yes
Yeah
Yes
Good band but they never swung cos they don't swing
I’ve seen a few jazz banjoists, oddly all playing bebop and not the old timey jazz from when banjo was one of the original jass instruments.
If you plan on playing swing tunes, yes. And it's actually not a bad question. The swing rhythms have a lot of context and performance practice that also requires consideration if you want to sound good playing in the swing style. Besides the rhythmic studies, you'll also need to think about picking techniques, transcription of a like instrument(s) and hours of careful and analytical listening. You might also consider that there's a reason guys like Bela Fleck and Noam Pikelny choose to play mainly straight-eighth rhythms. This road is difficult. But if you find a way to make it work, the world is your oyster, my friend. Good Luck!
It's as if u gave a well considered unbiased opinion and got ignored by the swung out snobberies Hmmmm
Thanks. It's all good. I'm not answering the question for them. I'm just trying to be helpful and this is something I know about.
Learn to swing so you can look at yourself in the mirror.
Hey there r nsfw subreddits for those sorts things!
Quarter notes !
Jannjo? Listen to Bela Fleck and the Flecktones
Swing is not the displacement of the upbeat. Though it's used like that in music theory and in compositions to dictate style, to swing is is really to have a good time feel. Yes you need to learn to swing. Whether you're playing swung eighths or straight 16ths it needs to swing.
I'd rephrase that: "swing is not (only) about the placement in time". And yes, there are not enough people who know/teach that. And it gets worse when they confuse swing with shuffle.
I suppose you're right. quite literally swing is 100% about the placement of notes in time. I think I'm trying to highlight that this applies to straight rhythms just as much as "swung" rhythms
>quite literally swing is 100% about the placement of notes in time. There are other factors too, accents, note choices, starting & ending phrases, "getting away from the one"...
I think it depends on what you mean by jazz. If you were thinking Bela fleck, his music is improvisatory and often gets called jazz, but has no real swing elements to it, and most people probably wouldn’t say it’s jazz, although they might say it’s jazzy. If you were thinking about “early jazz“ where the banjo was used asa backing instrument, the. we are talking a Proto swing feel, but yes, you’d want to deep dive into what that feels like. Also if you’re playing banjo already, you might be closer than you think. For instance, country swing and bluegrass swing are already things. if you look at a record like Willie Nelson’s Stardust, I would say, there’s very little swing, feel on it, but still in my mind stands as a great contribution to the great American songbook, and in a weird way is one of my favourite jazz records.
I’m no virtuoso by any stretch, but I’d argue that you want to be able to “swing” to effectively express yourself in any musical medium be it jazz, rock, pop, whatever. It serves not only to develop a strong sense of time, but also gives one’s rhythm an elasticity that allows for greater rhythmic improvisation. Furthermore, it’ll keep your playing from sounding stiff. Get some of the human element in there, otherwise might as well be generating songs via AI.
All knowledge is a good thing in any situation you are in.
John Coltrane did and he was the best jazz bananabanjoist out there
Just play how you play with a 4/4 rhythm, then change the beat to swing afterward. This gave me a great understanding of the difference. I've also found that starting a solo or focusing your notes on the 2nd and 4th beat can be very helpful. Eventually you'll want to "lose" the rhythm altogether to make your phrasings feel unattached or "out" as they say. Then bring it back to rhythmic voicings again.
Controversial: only drummers *need* to learn how to swing. Soloists should develop their own personal approach and relationship to the beat on a spectrum from swing to straight. Doesn’t hurt to learn how to swing though, but the end result should be YOU.
Good answer.
Good drummers can swing playing straight quarters over a slow blues, and so should everybody else.
Are you looking to play great american song book tunes on banjo? Or are you looking to play banjo in a jazz context with other jazz musicians? If you want to play jazz on anything you gotta get used to the swing. And that's really not that hard. I assume you like the music you want to play, so getting the swing is as simple as listening a lot. but this should be simple if it's music you like...if not I'd recommend learning to play stuff you like.
Why start something?
You are either stupid and or insanely lazy if you are asking this question. If you were trying to be a car mechanic do you think you would need to know how a car works in order to fix it? I would add that asking this question entails you don't know what you want from it which would probably be a good first place start before asking lazy questions. Edit: if you are trying to play swing music or any music with a history of it swinging it will only benefit you to learn to swing.
Does “swing” and “banjo” belong in the same sentence? Lol!
Absolutely. In the early swing bands, the (tenor) banjo originated the role that was later taken up by the archtop acoustic guitar: four-on-the-floor comping. The move away from the Banjo was due to a number of reasons, including the ride and hi-hat cymbals becoming standard parts of the drum set and technological improvements to microphones and other recording/amplification equipment.