Pulse and swing: Quantitative analysis of hierarchical structure in swing rhythm
Ken Lindsay, Pete Nordquist · The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America · 2007
Swing feeling in music is generally attributed to the presence of timing variations in the rhythm as played, contrasted with standard tablature form. Substitution of triplet subdivision for the divide by two format (quarter, eighth, sixteenth notes) of Mozart-Bach (MB) notation is a well known timing variation associated with Swing. We present evidence that an important part of Swing is also found in nonuniform timing of the Pulse, or basic beat, of a Swing tune i.e., time delta between downbeats of successive musical measures does not conform to a regularly spaced time grid as defined by the metronome. To our knowledge, this fundamental aspect of Swing has not been previously reported. The departure from a uniform time grid and presence of different types of time variations played by different instruments both make important contributions to the ‘‘lively’’ quality found in Swing style of many genres: Classic Jazz Swing, Pop, Gospel/Soul, Rock and Roll, Samba, etc. Although different rhythms may not be locked together as in MB style, nonetheless they are all highly synchronized. The degree of synchronization corresponds to varying degrees of tight or loose rhythmic style. This also contributes to the ‘‘live’’ feeling in the musical performance.