"Swinging" the beat in Classic-style banjo.

[Carl Anderton]

Clarke Buehling once told me that I was "swinging" the beat on a tune, and that strictly speaking, that wasn't proper, given the 1870-1920 time frame on so much of the repertiore.

I'm not exactly sure how I was swinging, so perhaps the more rhythmically literate here can describe what that entails.

Then, can we also discuss the pros and cons of "swinging" classic-style banjo music?

[Adam]

Hi, Carl. Good question. I *felt* like I knew what was meant by "swung rhythm" but I found I couldn't articulate it. A little research on the web provided this site, which I found to be a useful explanation:

http://totalguitarist.com/lessons/rhythm/swung-8th-notes/

As for the pros and cons, all I can say is I am partial to a swung rhythm ... But I'd like to be more in control of it in my own playing - and therefore be able to turn it off and on as desired. At present I have more difficulty turning it off ...

I'll leave it at that and the let the more rhythmically literate chime in!

[Jody Stecher]

Ragtime without swing rhythm (as defined and demonstrated in the guitarist website cited by J. Adam ) usually sounds stilted and stiff. If it's wrong to swing classic banjo then Van Eps and Ossman are terribly wrong because they swing in their recordings of rags. Throw any of their ragtime recordings into some slowdown software and you can discern the swung rhythm easily. When playing light classical or marches it was another matter. Some of the early brass bands playing ragtime are playing pretty straight time though. The result is a bit jerky and that may have been intentional. Rag as in ragged. Swing rhythm is flowing and graceful and lightens things up and it is very old, predates the banjo, and certainly predates the Swing genre of the 1930s. Ragtime coalesced as a genre in the late 1890s and was pretty much *over* by 1920 so how could it be wrong to play it as it was generally played for its entire lifespan as popular music? In earlier times I think it's likely that most folks playing from Converse's books when they were new were playing straight time. But I wouldn't be surprised to discover that early white players who were exposed to the music of rural black players of the banjr had some swing evident in their music. I betcha Sweeney swung on some of his repertoire. But don't take my word for it, listen to the old recordings and draw your conclusions from the empirical evidence.

[Trapdoor2]

Rob may go for a long-distance strangle here...

It is difficult for me to play tunes 'straight', my fingers always want to hear a bit of swing. However, when I'm learning a new 'classic' piece, want to hear it absolutely straight...machine straight...MIDI straight. ;-)

Beyond the horribly tinny MIDI sounds, the rigidity simply kills most tunes...but it is exactly as written, no doubt about it. So, I tend to learn the tunes 'straight' and whatever happens after that...happens. ;-)

[Jody Stecher]

Rob MacKillop said:

Listen to Scott Joplin playing his own music - no swing. OK, it's on a piano roll, but those things could articulate swing if it was there.
Well I find all this a bit puzzling. First of all I don't hear a big difference in Rob's timing and mine in playing Grimshaw's #50. I hear a bit of swing in some of his phrasing. Then I just gave a listen to these piano rolls. Maple Leaf Rag is very straight time. But to my ears Magnetic Rag has a light swing/lilt to it. Other pieces have some of both. In any case, Rob is right about Scott Joplin's general approach. A fair amount of Morley in super-low fidelity can be heard on the CD "The Tarrant Bailey Collection". Except for some "dotted" music he plays straight time and he plays no rags. John Cunninghame plays ragtime very straight. But their contemporaries Sydney Turner and Clifford Essex play in swing time. Addressing "trapdoor"'s comment about classic banjo being "written" in straight time, I'd say that's the convention for writing, and a good thing too because the page would be cluttered with dots and flags if the real phrasing of Van Eps and Ossman were written out. If it actually could be.

[Jody Stecher]

If swing rhythm makes music sound like jazz why does even the most ancient Irish and Highland Scots music not sound jazzy? Much of it swings, even the purely vocal music of the Hebrides. I think jazz in its earlier days was also marked by a certain harmonic sensibility and Grimshaw had some of that sensibility, and that may be why Grimshaw swung starts to sound jazzy. Which bring me to this question: Why is it wrong to sound like jazz? "Classic" banjo is a recent name. Everything I've heard and read suggests that Grimshaw considered himself a jazz musician as much as a player of any other genre. He also was a pioneer in the development of the electric guitar in Britain. I'm pretty sure the Van Eps Trio thought they were playing jazz (though a real jazz musician might not think so). I'm talking about Fred Van Eps, not his famous jazz playing descendants.
After hearing many dozens of records such as Olly Oakley play Sweet Jasmine or Vess Ossman play Eli Green's Cakewalk it would not be unreasonable to assume that swing was not only acceptable in the classic banjo genre, but integral to it.


Rob MacKillop said:

It is clearly a case of personal preferance, with most people falling between none and heavy. Too much, though, and it begins to sound like jazz. My preference is to oscillate between none and a modicum.

Oscillate? It's only 7.25 am on a Sunday. My brain hasn't woken up yet...

[Jody Stecher]

Oscillate: to *swing* !! From Latin oscillat- 'swung' from the verb oscillare.

Rob MacKillop said:

My preference is to oscillate between none and a modicum.
Oscillate? It's only 7.25 am on a Sunday. My brain hasn't woken up yet...

[Jody Stecher]

My comments and questions are in the context of the original post by Carl requesting that we "discuss the pros and cons of swinging classic-style banjo music". My disagreement is not about what we each may feel and express on our banjos (I'm all for individuality and I play many things in straight time) but about the historicity of swing rhythm in classic banjo and the idea that pre-1920 banjo music is not proper when swung.

Rob MacKillop said:

Swing away, Jody, swing away. I can enjoy it both ways. I don't really have a strong preference, and I don't 'deliberately' not swing. We are doing the same thing: playing it the way we feel it. Nothing wrong with that.

[Carl Anderton]

I should have said in my original post that this is about the propriety of swinging ragtime music, since obvouisly the use of dotted notes occurs in quite a bit of classic banjo music. The piece that Clarke told me I was swinging too much on was A. J. Weidt's Sweet Corn, which is in the video section here.

I assume the use of a swing feel in ragtime is a serious matter to pianists who take their ragtime quite seriously. I should study up on how they feel about it.

[Trapdoor2]

Carl, I think you'll find the hysterical pianista completely in agreement with us. Swing is a personal choice...to be forever argued as hotly as any other 'choice' issue. I daresay you could post the same question in the ragtime piano forums and get the same disagreements!

And, Jody, I understand the complexity of notating swing and why Classic stuff is written the way it is. What we don't have is a bit of antique Italian that translates to "swing it, brother!"

perhaps: Allegro Molto Oscillilo?

[Joel Hooks]

Does a Maelzel metronome not swing? ; )

[marc dalmasso]

Dots is a convention to write the music ; you are supposed to syncopate this , to swing this , up to your feeling
For the piano rolls , most of them were only mechanical perforated but some others were played live by such great pianists like scott Joplin himself for instance