Your swing sounds average. Here’s why…

[@grantsegesser4186]

What if the real swing is the friends we made along the way.

[@unofficialbobcat]

bro i have heard so many things about swing. Accent the offbeats, accent the downbeats. accent 1 and 3 on drums, accent the 2 and 4 on drums. I don't know what to believe anymore 😭

[@elliotkozary]

I dunno what is is for drummers, but the offbeat accent is a guide kinda thing for your feel. I reckon the best thing is just listening to a bunch of jazz so you can internalize it

[@unofficialbobcat]

@@elliotkozary good point. Thanks!

[@itom1994]

8th note lines should be like this how Elliot demonstrated, if you are playing a melodic motif on blues (not 8th note lines) lets say then you can play accents on 1.

[@unofficialbobcat]

@@itom1994 TRUE thank you

[@AndreWeissOfficial]

Believe the records.

[@EmilSavery]

You can swing while accenting the quarter notes. It's about the touch and the length of the note, it’s not about constantly accenting the off-beat.

[@blorblin]

This works with vocal improv too, usually syllables ending with -ah are more stressed, so you gotta sprinkle them on both off beats and on beats

[@elliotkozary]

@EmilSavery @blorblin you’re both right, it’s not always accents on the offbeats and note length also matters, it’s just a helpful foundation to keep in mind when trying to play swing, you don’t have to follow it rigorously

[@omnomnom504]

Great vid great explanation. My personal experience is you could also play ska for like ten minutes and you'll get the offbeat locked in for life

[@elliotkozary]

That is so true 😂😂

[@Marc.22.]

I love this explanation of the concept of swing! Accents are very useful and important and sometimes we forget to use them. Keep up the great content!

[@LuluNoLimit]

This is good stuff man. One thing I find VERY helpful on a wind instrument is to tongue the off-beats and slur to the down beat in an 8 note run idk how to describe it but it REALLY make the accents pop. I learned about this "bebop tonguing" while learning a few lines

[@elliotkozary]

That’s awesome! I don’t play woodwinds myself but it sounds similar to the concept I’m explaining here

[@LuluNoLimit]

@@elliotkozary yea its practically the same thing except you involve tonguing to make it stand out more

[@honeybee4316]

I used to set the metronome clicks on the 2 & 4 and practice to that

[@elliotkozary]

That’s an awesome way of practicing, I do it too!

[@kevinsavo718]

Thanks for the great content sir!

[@elliotkozary]

Glad you enjoy it!

[@pickinstone]

Mike Longo and Hal Galper could give you a whole treatise on swinging--both famous jazz pianists that we should know. Swing is African. Swing is poly rhythmic. Swing is beyond the eighth note triplet--but triplets are very important to jazz--just not in the typical way they are taught. 3:2 is important as well as 3:4--and that's just the beginning. The issue stems from the whole "you can't teach swing feel" and "rhythm is too hard to teach, especially to non-drummers." We have to be our own best drummers--and we have to put as much effort into the rhythmic and pulse content of the music we play as the notes we play. If we ignore the dance of what we play, then the venue ain't gonna call you for another day.

[@davidallsopp4030]

Great video!

[@cmb_cworld]

monk, bud, barry; bebop is felt on the 1 and 3

[@jj8703]

me with a yamaha keyboard that has no dynamic sensitivity:

[@jazzercaster4749]

And those 8th notes are straight right? So straight 8th notes but accenting the off beats?

[@elliotkozary]

You can play straight 8th notes and accent the offbeat, but the best swing feel comes with accenting the offbeat and having swung 8th notes combined

[@whereamig0ing]

that's hip?

[@hashtagornah]

THATS SWINGIN

[@ihaveaname15]

Just feel it out

[@elliotkozary]

This is very true

[@planetdrinker5385]

If you were actually serious about explaining swing then it could be done mathematically. You simply record swung eighth notes at a particular bpm and then analyze the time in milliseconds (ms). You determine the length of the "long" note, the length of the "short" note, and the length of a crotchet (the two notes combined, which can be predetermined by the bpm). You can then calculate the length of the long note as a percentage of the crotchet. Swung is commonly expressed the way you demonstrated, with eighth note triplet containing a crotchet and a quaver (which could be expressed as 66.67% and 33.33% of a beat). The reason this is done is because it's the closest approximation you can get regular notation. You demonstrated a good way to "feel" jazz swing, but does this really hold up for blues? As others have pointed out - listen, feel, reproduce. Or.... boun-cey boun-cey boun-cey boun-cey...