Jazz drummers’ swing ratio in relation to tempo
Anders Friberg, Andreas Sundstroem · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 1999
It is common in jazz to perform consecutive eighth notes as long–short patterns. Drummers’ performances on the ride cymbal of these long–short patterns were measured on excerpts taken from commercial recordings. It was found that the ratio between the long and the short note (swing ratio) varied substantially with tempo. At slow tempi the swing ratio was as high as 3.5:1, while at fast tempo it reached 1:1. The absolute duration of the short note, however, was found to be constant (about 100 ms) for medium to fast tempi. This suggests the existence of a limit on tone duration and also that the short note may function as an up-beat to the following note. A similar relation between swing ratio and tempo was also observed in a production experiment where listeners adjusted the swing ratio of a computer-generated performance.