Re: Metric accents of 4-time

¤ Alias wrote:

I dug up the Coker book, "Improvising Jazz" to try to find what I thought
he had said about percentages. Turns out he wasn't the one who explained
them in that way ( I'll have to look around and see who it was that
actually did that.)

But guess how he *did* explain it? He started with the 12/8 model.

I've scanned some relevant pages from the book, so that rather than my
words, you can decide if his take on swing is valid.

http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x269/dtm106/cokero1.jpg
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x269/dtm106/coker2.jpg
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x269/dtm106/coker3.jpg
http://i180.photobucket.com/albums/x269/dtm106/coker4.jpg
I found this very interesting reading, particularly the part describing the problems those get that just wish to play without proper syncing - and they seem to not really have an organized method to do that. But relative your analysis, his shuffle seems to be too heavy.

There's no way to infer from the information given in those scans that his shuffle is "too heavy".

Take page 48, the last page I scanned.

Read page top 47, which says 3:1 is too heavy, not 2:1.

He notated these examples as a 2:1 ratio - a quarter and an eighth
connected with a triplet bracket. Since he's already issued his caveats in
the last paragraph of page1 and the first paragraph of page 2, (and we have
been discussing this right here,too) we can safely reason that these
bracketed quarter and eighth bracketed triplets are now, as Fiona pointed
out - shorthand notation for a ratio that is actually more complex.

Just a person unable to understand the subject. In Usenet lingo, a troll trying to start a flame.

So, lets say my idea of 9:7 is "right", (even though we know there's not
really absolute "rightness", let's assume it for now.)

His 2:1 ratio is now a shorthand *symbol*, which really means "When you see
2:1, play it like 9:7".

This is just a starting point; you must go deeper.

Again it comes back to clarity. Given the choice of writing out either a
9:7 or 2:1 ratio, a 2:1 ratio is the clearest to read and understand in
notational representation.

Also, as Dave pointed out, and my other post shows, ratios don't remain
the same for each piece, or between sections of the piece, or on different
days, different players, etc, etc, etc, etc, etc.

It is a means of expression, so you must understand how it is used, where and how. Different players may use a different bend range, but the underlying principle for the means of expression may be the same. Then you might fond a notation for it.

And it gets back to listening, internalizing, immersing oneself in a
certain style, experience, and an subconscious agreeing upon feel at the
moment of performance, adjustments during performance etc.etc.etc.etc.

[And,If by "syncing" you mean group performance, he covers group
performance a bit in another chapter, but nothing in there would be
relavant to this discussion]

He mentioned somewhere heated discussions among band members. If a group plays together in a pad, they must use similar time bends in the same places, or the sound will be messy.

He say's flat out at the end that these excercises are meant only to get
you "aquainted with" the feeling of swing.

So, nothing new, really, that hasn't already been covered in this thread
multiple times.

He recognizes the need for making the subject more specified, but is only able to give a starting point for improvisation.

Hans Aberg

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