How

To Swing Jazz Piano

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Lesson Supplement


What’s The Difference Between Straight And Swing Feel?

Listen to the C Major Scale with a straight feel and then with a swing feel.

Now let’s swing this 251 line:

You should be able to hear that the swing variation has more energy and forward
motion that propels the melody lien forwards.


How To Construct a Swing Rhythm.

To construct as swing rhythm you must understand the role of the triplet.

Here we have a bar of 8th notes in 4/4 time.

Each beat in the bar has 2 8th notes which would be counted as 1&2&3&4&1 etc...

If we turn all of the 8th notes into 8 note triplets, we now have subdivided each
beat into 3 segments and so you would count 1&a 2&a 3&a 4&a 1&a etc…

Now to construct a basic swing rhythm, we tie the first 2 8th note triplets
together and so now we have.

Here is another way of notating the same rhythm:

So Swing rhythm is based on the triplet and so the first step in absorbing the
swing feel is to understand how to land on the 1st and 3rd part of the triplet.

Practice this with the C Major Scale:

Count aloud with the triplet.

There is actually another way that swing can be notated. This is by have a dotted
8th note and a 16th note in each beat of the bar.

Here is an example.

This sounds much more rigid and stiff than the triplet feel but understand that if
you come across this in notation, it is typically indicating swing rhythm.

Using this as a point of reference is actually a good way to understand swing
feel… we’ll talk more about this later in the lesson.

A nice way to look at swing is that it’s somewhere in between the two notation
examples we have looked at. So it’s half way between the triplet feel and the
dotted 8th note to 16th note.
Once you have understood, applied and mastered this basic concept of landing
on the 1st and 3rd part of the triplet, you can then vary how much you swing.

Listen to jazz and you will find that some jazz musicians play a strong swing feel,
and others more of a straight feel. It’s for you to listen to your favourite players
and emulate their feel.

Listening and transcribing, and playing along with a swinging melody or solo is the
best way to ingrain this in your playing.



Why Isn’t Swing Feel Reflected In Notation?

Well let’s go back to the lick we looked at in C Major. Here it is:

If we take this same line of 8th notes but notate it with actual swing rhythm, you
can see that it’s looks overly complicated and much more difficult to read.

For this reason, jazz musicians understand that swing rhythm is implied for 8th
notes. Imagine how difficult it would be to read a lead sheet or transcription if all
of the 8th notes were notated like this.

This symbol also indicates swing rhythm and you
may see this above the stave at the start of a
transcription to indicate that the 8th notes should
be swung.




The Accents In Swing Rhythm – The 3rd Triplet

The final triplet should be emphasized. By doing this you are emphasizing the
up beat which is the & of each beat. But remember in swing rhythm, the & falls
on the 3rd triplet.

When you first do this I would recommend that you over emphasise this to help
you get into the habit of accenting the up beat. Play the down beat as softly as
possible and really hammer the up beat.

This is a good habit forming practice.

Now let’s apply this to the C Major Scale.

Now let’s apply this to the 251 lick:

Play As Legato As Possible

Legato can be defined as playing in a smooth flowing manner without breaks or
interruptions between the notes. Using the C Major Scale I’ll demonstrate a bad
example of this and then a good example:


Starting on The Upbeat Or Downbeat

In terms of where to start the phrase, there are 2 choices available to you here,
the downbeat, or the upbeat.

Upbeats are emphasized in swing rhythm and so if you come in on the upbeat,
you should be accenting the first note.

Here is an example of starting on the upbeat:

Adding Triplets To Your Swinging Lines

We have discussed that the achieve the swing feel, we turn 8th notes into 8th note
triplets and then join the first two together and accent the last one. Well if you
are playing triplets with a swing feel, you would play all three of them and
still accent the final triplet. Let’s look 3 examples: