Big Band Swing Timing Techniques and the Conductor Track

[stublito]

I am new to big band style sequencing (I'm a veteran rock/dance guy). With this style of music, the drummer's (therefore the sequence's) timing can vary much more than I am used to.

I have beat matched the conductor track to say, a Frank Sinatra recording, but certain downbeats are behind etc. I thought it would make sense rather to move the MIDI notes themselves, a lot of small adjustments to the conductor track would be better. I think this would mimic what is actually happening in the recording.

Also, when scores were displayed/printed, the basic note timings would show, as opposed to DP trying to display these off time notes. Plus the timing of all the other parts would line up without having to do the minor drum timing adjustments to all the parts as well.

I would appreciate some discussion on this. Thank you.

Stublito

[stubbsonic]

There are three main areas that you are dealing with:

1. Tempo fluctuations of any live band, including both deliberate and just natural human variation.

2. The swing thing is a pretty deep topic. It's not as simple as just making all beats into triplets. And it is not necessarily a fixed value. It varies by tempo, style, player, etc. etc.

3. That certain jazz/big-band/swing rhythms are deliberately "laid back"; and this is largely a matter of style and custom. Syncopated figures will often feel just a little behind the beat. And the drummer will kind of both accentuate this, and kind of drive to compensate (so that it doesn't keep slowing down).

As for what to do in DP, it depends what your end product is. If you are making charts, and just using the swing track as a reference, then you can just make the conductor follow. I'd also suggest that you could create two copies of each track: one for playback, and one for notation.

The reason is, that it is much less cumbersome to show swung 8th notes as even 8ths and then just write "swing" at the start of the chart.

[mikehalloran]

The reason is, that it is much less cumbersome to show swung 8th notes as even 8ths and then just write "swing" at the start of the chart.

Excellent advice. In case any musicians have to play these parts, they will want to see them noted straight.