Notation Software Users Forum  


Go Back   Notation Software Users Forum > Musician community sharing > Tips and tricks for using Notation Software products

Tips and tricks for using Notation Software products Learn (and share) tips and tricks for getting the most out of your Notation Software products.

Reply
 
Thread Tools Display Modes
  #1  
Old 08-20-2013, 04:58 AM
rrayner rrayner is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 897
Default Swing Feel

I love music. My passion is Big Band Jazz/Swing. One of the problems I have with all of the notation programs I have tried is that it is difficult to notate a phrase that truly swings. Straight eighth notes are too pure; dotted eighths/sixteenth notes are too herky-jerky (a lot of early swing music was written this way); and quarter/eighth note triplets, although closer to swing while being a little more cluttered for reading, still don't quite match up to the way a human plays swing. I truly don't know if that will ever be achieved in computer-generated music. Arrangers/bands that want to play a piece in swing style simply notate the subject phrases in straight eighth notes, and tell the musicians, "Swing it!".

It should be noted that "swing feel" is not restricted to jazz music. If you listen closely to any number of popular songs, you can hear the swing feel I am talking about -- they are not singing/playing straight eighth notes, and there is a lot of syncopation for offbeat notes -- a whole lot of swingin' goin' on.

Wanting my music to sound a little more human, I have tried tweaking durations and attack points in an attempt to get closer to the sound I want. The attached sample is a jazz/swing phrase notated in five different ways: 1) straight eighth notes; 2) dotted eighth/sixteenth notes; 3) quarter/eighth note triplets; and 4) my attempt at capturing a feel closer to real swing. Segment 5 is identical to Segment 4, but I have "smoothed out" each eighth note of the pairs by increasing their duration +7 -- see Steps 2 and 3 below. I am afraid this manipulation still falls short, but I like the sound of it better than the alternatives. It is additional work, however.

A little basic instruction first -- Notation Software uses a value of 480 ticks (units of time) per quarter note. You can see these units by using the Notation Software Piano Roll feature from the Task Ribbon. Straight eighth note pairs are each 233 ticks, with 7 ticks of no sound (release) after each note for separation (233+7+233+7=480 ticks). Dotted eighth/sixteenth pairs have the following pattern: 345+15+113+7=480 ticks. The truest, easiest to notate swing feel is the quarter/eighth note triplet pairs which have the following pattern: 309+11+153+7=480.

Note: If you are making the following types of changes in Piano Roll, make sure you are in "ep" mode, which modifies only the "as performed" attacks and durations. You can either type "ep" or click the third icon from the left in Piano Roll.

Take a look at the attached .not file to see the five examples of the different treatments of a sample phrase. What I have done in the fourth iteration of the phrase (Swing Feel) is the following:

1) one at a time, select all of the offbeat eighth notes and type a+60 and press Enter -- this will move the attack for these notes 60 ticks to the right and decrease the duration of these notes by 60 ticks from 233 ticks to 173 ticks -- also, if you want to smooth out the articulation of the phrase, type d+7 at this point to lengthen the second note of the pair to 180 ticks -- see Segment 5

2) one at a time, select all of the eighth notes that are on the beat and type d+60 and press Enter -- this will increase the duration of these eighth notes from 233 ticks to 293 ticks -- also, if you are smoothing out the articulation of the phrase, as in Step 1 above, type d+7 at this point to lengthen the first note of the pair to 300 ticks -- see Segment 5

3) one at a time, select all of the offbeat eighth notes that are either at the end of a phrase or a standalone note with nothing following it (measures 19 & 20 -- a swing musician would "fatten" these notes to give them more prominence) -- type d+107 and press Enter -- this will lengthen each of these notes to 280 ticks (173+107=280 ticks -- a nice "fat" sound)

Note: If you are making the changes to multiple parts, you can select multiple notes in several parts at the same time, as long as each of the selected notes is one you want to change.

These adjustments are arbitrary on my part. At the moment, what I hear is more to my liking than the quarter/eighth note triplet feel, which I feel sounds too mechanical. Of course, my adjustments are also mechanical -- each eighth note pair is adjusted the same way. But, it is a matter of personal choice. As time goes by, I may change my mind and think that I should adjust by 55 ticks or 65 ticks, or some other variation. This choice is, of course, subjective. If I truly wanted to spend the time, varying each eighth note pair a little differently would make it sound much more human, but this will do for me at this time.

To see this adjustment implemented, see my recent Puttin’ on the Ritz.

It uses the a+60 and d+60 I mentioned above. I hope this little discourse is of benefit to someone. I know I'm a lot happier with the sound I get using this technique.

Ralph R. Rayner
Attached Files
File Type: not Swing Sample.not (21.9 KB, 19 views)

Last edited by rrayner; 09-01-2017 at 01:53 PM. Reason: Added additional instructions
Reply With Quote
  #2  
Old 01-05-2014, 03:48 PM
rrayner rrayner is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 897
Default Swing Feel

For those of you who are interested in this thread, I have added another example of the usage of the variations outlined in my first post on Swing Feel. See/hear the full version at: Yesterdays

My septet version of “Yesterdays” contains more of the attack/duration manipulation detailed in my initial post. I have added a sample with this post to illustrate the differences in the traditional ways of notating swing music, with my special swing manipulation last for you to hear the difference between the three examples. I have only included the horns and the bass for the examples. The first sample (A) is the “old” standard way of notating swing, i.e., the dotted eighth/sixteenth note pattern. The second example (B) is (to my ear) the closest you can get to notating swing feel, i.e., quarter/eighth note triplets. To my mind, this notation is a little harder to read as there is a little bit more ink on the paper (the bracketed 3). Notation Composer has the very nice feature that allows you to write this style of swing notation (called Standard Rhythm) and convert it to Swing Rhythm. This looks cleaner to the player, because the quarter/eighth note pairs are replaced with eighth notes, i.e., the conversion to Swing Rhythm for B would make it look like C -- a lot less cluttered. The score and the individual parts would have to instruct the players to perform the piece with a “swing feel”. This is the best of all possible worlds for writing and reading swing music, however, as discussed in my original post, the feel when Notation is playing the piece is not the way it would sound if a human swing band were playing it -- the dotted eighth/sixteenth notation is too herky-jerky and the quarter/eighth triplet notation is close, but not close enough to my ear. My goal in writing these swing pieces is to be able to play along with my Clavinova, which is “my band”, as I don’t have a local group of part-time musicians to play with. Therefore, I want “my band” to play as close to what this human will play. The best I can approximate this is heard in example C -- notated as described in my original post.

Admittedly, the differences are subtle -- the difference between A and B being the most noticeable, as A is a little bit choppier. The difference between B is C is a harder to hear, but I can feel it when I play along with the Clavinova. The bottom line is that it is personal taste.

Ralph Rayner
Attached Files
File Type: not Yesterdays Examples.not (39.9 KB, 3 views)

Last edited by rrayner; 09-01-2017 at 01:49 PM. Reason: Updated Text
Reply With Quote
  #3  
Old 01-06-2014, 01:35 PM
dj dj is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Jan 1970
Location: Balderson, Ontario, Canada, 100 kms (60 miles) from Ottawa
Posts: 799
Default Re: Swing Feel

And, it don't mean a thing if ain't got that . . . you know . . . what's that called?
Reply With Quote
  #4  
Old 01-07-2014, 05:53 PM
rrayner rrayner is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 897
Default Re: Swing Feel

In the aftermath of my cleanup after completing Yesterdays, I thought I would try to extrapolate some of the new tricks Sherry taught me.

Specifically, Sherry and David showed me how to notate glissandi by having two staves for each instrument, one hidden which contains the written-out (and hard to read) glissando, and the other visible staff showing the clean, easy to read notation for printing (see the visible and hidden staves for the baritone sax in measures 1 through 4). I thought I would try to do the same thing with the turns in measures 56 and 57. It turns out (no pun intended) that the way we were taught to play turns at Berklee is not what Mark implemented in the Notation Software, and I assume Mark's implementation is the strict classical form.

The turns we were taught at Berklee sound like the way I notated them in measures 56 and 57. When I tried to implement the Notation turns (tu) in their stead, the resulting sound is not at all what I wanted to hear the horns playing, so I will stick with the way I had originally notated the turns.

See/listen to the attached sample of those two measures: the first two measures are the way I notated the turns; the second two measures have Notation performing the turns. I'm certain that the Notation implementation of turns is legitimate -- it just doesn't fit in a jazz/swing score. You can see the way Notation has handled the turns by using the qsor command. For some reason, Notation hides the eighth notes in measure 4 for the trumpet and tenor.

There may be some refinements that I can make to the Notation turns that could capture the sound I want, but that research will have to come at a later date. Of course, I can still use the visible/hidden staves to clean up the printed parts.

Ralph
Attached Files
File Type: not Turns.not (12.4 KB, 3 views)

Last edited by rrayner; 09-01-2017 at 01:46 PM. Reason: Updated text and Notation file
Reply With Quote
  #5  
Old 01-08-2014, 12:05 AM
Sherry C's Avatar
Sherry C Sherry C is offline
Product Manager
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Bad Axe, MI, USA (The Tip of the Thumb of Michigan)
Posts: 2,556
Default Re: Swing Feel

Hi Ralph,

I'm no expert, but in referring to my little "Essential Dictionary of Music" by Alfred publishing, the Notation rendering of the Turn is "correct" (according to the Dictionary, anyway) while your notation is referred to as an "Inverted Mordent".

I know that even though we think of "standardized notation", sometimes there are still differences in definition of terms due to historical or genre differences. I think this is probably one of those instances

Thanks for pointing out the difference in this instance, and for the opportunity for me to learn a bit more in the process.

ttfn,
Sherry
__________________
Music is to the soul like water is to green growing things.
__________________________________
http://www.beanfieldcastle.net/music.html
Reply With Quote
  #6  
Old 01-08-2014, 12:18 AM
rrayner rrayner is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 897
Default Re: Swing Feel

Hi Sherry,

I was dead certain that Mark's implementation of a turn would be "spot on".

Thanks for the revisit to my school days. The term "inverted mordent" does sound familiar, although I never could have identified it as such.

Maybe you could add it to the palette??

Ralph
Reply With Quote
  #7  
Old 01-08-2014, 12:56 AM
Sherry C's Avatar
Sherry C Sherry C is offline
Product Manager
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Bad Axe, MI, USA (The Tip of the Thumb of Michigan)
Posts: 2,556
Default Re: Swing Feel

Hi Ralph,

Actually mordents - both upward and downward - are already on the Ornaments palette (right after Turn and Delayed Turn).

ttfn,
Sherry
__________________
Music is to the soul like water is to green growing things.
__________________________________
http://www.beanfieldcastle.net/music.html
Reply With Quote
  #8  
Old 01-08-2014, 12:53 PM
dj dj is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Jan 1970
Location: Balderson, Ontario, Canada, 100 kms (60 miles) from Ottawa
Posts: 799
Default Re: Swing Feel

Hi, guys:

An inverted mordent would, roughly translated, be an "upside down dying".

Jargon is weird, sometimes.

(It's so freaking cold here that I'm in a joking frame of mind, to try to generate warmth. Spent most of the day yesterday down in my well, trying to unfreeze things. We have water again.)

David
Reply With Quote
  #9  
Old 01-08-2014, 11:20 PM
Sherry C's Avatar
Sherry C Sherry C is offline
Product Manager
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Bad Axe, MI, USA (The Tip of the Thumb of Michigan)
Posts: 2,556
Default Re: Swing Feel

Hi David,

Quote:
Originally Posted by dj View Post
(It's so freaking cold here that I'm in a joking frame of mind, to try to generate warmth. Spent most of the day yesterday down in my well, trying to unfreeze things. We have water again.)
Glad you've now got water, and hope you're enjoying some of the heat wave we're having now (it got up to 15F today). I know you guys have it a lot worse than we do.

I also hope thinking up jokes revs up the brain to put off more heat

ttfn,
Sherry
__________________
Music is to the soul like water is to green growing things.
__________________________________
http://www.beanfieldcastle.net/music.html
Reply With Quote
  #10  
Old 01-26-2014, 12:47 AM
rrayner rrayner is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 897
Default Re: Swing Feel

I have added another score that features the points made in this discourse. You can see/hear "Autumn Nocturne" at:

http://www.notation.com/vb-forum/sho...4782#post64782

Ralph
Reply With Quote
  #11  
Old 02-01-2014, 01:20 AM
herbert herbert is offline
Senior User
 
Join Date: Jan 1970
Location: Just north of Sydney
Posts: 209
Default Re: Swing Feel

Hi Ralph,

I have given up on producing more readable scores for real musicians. What I mostly need are orchestral accompaniments for vocalists. I could not afford to employ the Sydney Symphony Orchestra or any other orchestra for our performances. The next best thing is to use Notation Composer and other software in support, to produce backing tracks.

I read with interest your posts on Swing Feel. As I see it, there are many meanings to the word “swing”. At least three meanings relate to music. Swing can mean jazz-related music of the early 1900’s and the dance style that came with it. Swing can mean rhythmic reinterpretation of written music using doted triplets. To me swing means communicating complex rhythm patterns between jazz musicians. With current methods of notation, swing of the type I am interested in is not notated but is created “on the fly” by capable musicians

Ralph, your arrangements are very impressive. Yet to me, they miss the spark of life in its performance. No doubt musicians playing the arrangements would infuse much life into your music. One observation I have made, is that you place most notes exactly on the beat. This is quite un-natural.

I am primarily a notation person. I would be lost without notation and the music theory that goes with it. But to create a good performance, the notation is only a part of the work. Midi editing brings the music to life and is absolutely essential. Good sample libraries are a must.

David commented elsewhere that the Drums staff in “Autumn Nocturne.not” is rather low in volume. What strikes me in that respect is that some instruments are overshadowed by other more dominant instruments. Not hearing certain sounds due to other sounds is part of our hearing physiology. The mp3 process for instance makes use of this by removing masked sounds we do not hear, in order to reduce the size of an audio file.

Notes that cannot be heard need to be made more prominent or removed to maintain the clarity of the sound (avoid muddiness of sound). The Hi-hat in “Autumn Nocturne.not” is for instance suppressed by the snare. One way of dealing with this is to advance the Hi-hat say by 40 ticks and perhaps increase its volume. Just shifting the Hi-hat to the left by say 40 ticks is already an improvement. Try it with the advance in time you feel is right. BTW this adjustment has nothing to do with swing but with getting good sound.

The attack of a note is the important rhythmic part of a note. It must not necessarily fall exactly on the beat in a measure. Having the attack of all notes at exactly the same time, on the beat for instance, is bad practice and not natural. Particularly with percussive and plucked instruments, the sound will be poor and hard to make out. Importantly, there is the danger of clipping and distortion as all volume levels will add together at the same time. The total volume will be the sum of the individual volume levels of each instrument at the time of percussion and pluck of strings. In contrast to this, if we look at ordinary music files, the sum of random sound levels is much lower. It is the geometric sum of each sound level, expressed as: Total volume = square root over (sound level A squared + sound level B squared + sound level C squared …) This ends up much less than a simple sum of coinciding peak sound levels.

I play double bass and played many years ago in various modern jazz groups. There is always competition between the drummer playing his bass drum and the bass player. Harmonic spectra of both instruments overlap. I was mostly able to persuade the drummer to use the bass drum only minimally, at times by bribing the drummer with drinks. At one concert I had to hide the drum pedal from the drummer. The drummer was most upset and kicked the bass drum directly and continuously with his boot. Since then is the bass drum also known as the kick drum.


Best wishes,

Herbert
Reply With Quote
  #12  
Old 02-01-2014, 05:31 PM
rrayner rrayner is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 897
Default Re: Swing Feel

Hi Herbert,

You make a number of excellent observations and points. Bottom line -- it would be a lot easier for me to write these scores plainly (notation-wise) and not worry about attack and duration, because the musicians would interpret the notes and feeling of the piece. I would LOVE to be in that world again, but my Clavinova is my only outlet for playing my music myself with a semblance of a real band.

Some of the early pieces I actually created on the Clavinova (before Notation Composer came into my life), with the lead part being the midi output of me struggling with the midi keyboard, trying to play a single-hand representation of what the melody line was supposed to be (I didn’t try anything up-tempo). At times, this came out not too bad, and as you point out, when I read that midi file into Composer, I see that not all of the entrances of the multiple voices are on the same tick, and I know from personal experience of playing in bands and fronting my own, that there are subtle human variances in the attack timing. One of the joys of playing is to play in a “tight band” (beverages not involved) and really put in a tight performance, i.e., multiple horns sounding like one instrument. So, in regard to the horns, at this point I would rather have something passable to play along with than spend more time in varying the individual attack points. You are so right that it would sound more natural if I did this, but I don't want to spend a lot of time tweaking, when that time could be spent in making other passable scores. I don't feel this is laziness -- simply me trying to be practical with my limited time -- my choices are: one score really humanized for playback; or five or ten that are good, but maybe not great.

The drum part in my Autumn Nocturne is tailored for my Clavinova. The GM sound card on my PC and the Clavinova both have very disparate sound samples in regard to volume and velocity. When I start to write a new piece, Composer wants all staffs to be Velocity=96, so I have to vary these levels to make the final product listenable. My trumpet voice for instance, is rather weak and needs to stay at 96. I drop the tenor sax and baritone sax to 79 for a better balance. The trombone gets dropped to 71 or lower depending on the overall balance in each individual piece.

This variance in Velocity is particularly a pain in the drum kits on both GM and Clavinova. The Hi-hat (Ab3) at 63 sounds okay, as it cuts through fairly well on my venues. The brushes on snare (E2) are set to 63 also. The bass drum (C3) at 96 will knock you into the Old Country, so I have it set to 31, and you are right, it is rather weak. I will probably boost it a little bit higher.

By the way, the brushes on snare (E2) in my "Autumn Nocturne" gives me the brush sound I want on the Clavinova, the circular motion of the brush on the snare surface. Playing around yesterday with my Shuffle Beat posting, I found out that the GM D3 is a much better choice for proper sound of a brush on snare on my PC, but it is not the circular motion sound.

I am really loathe to use MP3 -- so much is lost, but out of respect for the data storage capability on Notation Software’s server, I have chosen to sacrifice some sound for storage size, just so I can present what my score sounds like (somewhat, with a percentage of the sound missing) on my target system, the Clavinova.

Thank you very much for all of your insightful commentary. I am always interested in the ideas of others on how I might improve my music, particularly as it is played by a PC.

Loved your tale about the “kick drum”.

Ralph

Last edited by rrayner; 09-01-2017 at 01:35 PM. Reason: Links
Reply With Quote
  #13  
Old 02-03-2014, 01:25 PM
rrayner rrayner is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 897
Default Re: Swing Feel

Hi Herbert,

Please see my Shuffle Beat thread.

I adjusted the Hi-hat attack by -40 ticks, and it is quite helpful in "uncovering" the Hi-hat, while not being disruptive to the overall feel of the beat.

Thank you very much for the tip.

Ralph

Last edited by rrayner; 09-01-2017 at 02:06 PM.
Reply With Quote
  #14  
Old 09-01-2017, 02:01 PM
rrayner rrayner is offline
Moderator
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Posts: 897
Default Re: Swing Feel

In my original entry of this discourse, I stated:

1) one at a time, select all of the offbeat eighth notes and type a+60 and press Enter -- this will move the attack for these notes 60 ticks to the right and decrease the duration of these notes by 60 ticks from 233 ticks to 173 ticks -- also, if you want to smooth out the articulation of the phrase, type d+7 at this point to lengthen the second note of the pair to 180 ticks -- see Segment 5.

I have discontinued using the d+7 mentioned above. It makes little difference in the sound and just consumes data entry time with all of the extra typing.

Ralph Rayner
Reply With Quote
Reply

Bookmarks

Thread Tools
Display Modes

Posting Rules
You may not post new threads
You may not post replies
You may not post attachments
You may not edit your posts

BB code is On
Smilies are On
[IMG] code is On
HTML code is Off

Forum Jump

Similar Threads
Thread Thread Starter Forum Replies Last Post
A String of Pearls Duet rrayner "Learning and Teaching" pieces 6 06-23-2013 05:50 PM
Editing straight 8ths to swing 8ths Sherry C Tips and tricks for using Notation Software products 0 04-02-2012 07:23 PM
Chesapeake Swing Band Medley #1 rrayner Share Your Music 1 09-23-2011 03:43 AM
Swing Feel Agatha Tips and tricks for using Notation Software products 1 08-29-2010 07:20 PM
Swing Alek Yasko (kombrig) Share Your Music 13 01-29-2007 03:57 AM


All times are GMT. The time now is 07:59 PM.


Powered by vBulletin® Version 3.8.4
Copyright ©2000 - 2024, Jelsoft Enterprises Ltd.
Notation Software Germany GmbH www.notation.com/Imprint.php