Starting on Upbeats
Jazz Swing Tutorial No. 3
by Eddie Lewis
In this third Jazz Swing Tutorial, we begin to break out of the repetitious scales. The previous tutorials all began on downbeats, but much of jazz isn’t limited to just starting on downbeats.
There are students who struggle with this stage of the learning process. I think it’s partly because they are not fully aware of whether the first note of a phrase is on the upbeat or the downbeat. Inevitably, they do what we call “turning the beat around”. They play something like a jazz swing, but it’s rhythmically upside down. Then everything that’s supposed to happen on the downbeat happens on the upbeat and visa versa.
Mental, Subconscious Control
If you have been following my teaching through my books, videos or private lessons, then you know how much I talk about the mental side of our art. I often say that, “Great trumpet playing is mental. And because it’s mental, it is also fragile.”
The purpose of this tutorial is to help you recognize upbeats from downbeats subconsciously. You do this by focusing on matching what I play as perfectly as possible. In stead of trying to “count” the rhythms, just listen and match me.
Great jazz players aren’t thinking at the “let me count the beats” level. They are not constantly saying to themselves, “this is an upbeat, this is an downbeat.” This part of what we do is entirely automatic.
The video exercise embedded below is set up to help you get to the automatic nature of being a good jazz swinger easily, without trying hard.
An Interesting Phenomenon
In my experience as a jazz improvisation teacher, this problem of turning the beat around only ever happens when the students are reading. When they are improvising, it is extremely rare for them to turn the beat around like that. In fact, I have no conscious memory of someone improvising with a swing that got the beat turned around.
This is evidence of how mental swing is. If swing was something we did consciously, then this phenomenon that happens when we improvise would never happen.
Therefore, we do not develop a swing feel through a force of will. Instead, we live in that musical environment and it rubs off on us subconsciously. These swing studies are part of that musical environment.
That’s why we repeat each exercise ten times. The repetitions push the actions deeper and deeper into our subconscious minds. Remember, our practice time is a major factor in our music environment.
Reminders
Remember first that this is tutorial number three. If you haven’t done the first two tutorials in this series, then it’s very important that you start from the beginning. Don’t start here.
If you are doing these tutorials at all, then it means you are struggling with the swing. If you are struggling with the swing, even just a little, then it’s better to do all of the tutorials in order.
Also remember to commit to the full video. Don’t skip. Don’t quit early. It may seem like these exercises are too easy. That’s on purpose. We want it to be easy. We want it to be so easy that it seems boring.
How to Swing Starting on Upbeats
When we talk about swing being a lopsided rhythm (as opposed to teaching swing as a triplet rhythm), we are saying that one of the notes is longer than the other. More specifically, the downbeat is longer than the upbeat. How much longer depends on the style.
The way we initiate this lopsidedness when the phrase begins on an upbeat is to begin with a slur. Sometimes that’s all it takes. Get the slurs right and the swing will be right.
Unfortunately, sometimes it takes a little more effort than just slurring correctly.
Sometimes you have to break the phrase down to the first two notes.
In the case of the image above, turn on your metronome and practice only the first two notes, being 100% certain that the G is on the downbeat. The F is am upbeat “pickup” to the G downbeat.
These instructions are only for when you have a specifically stubborn time trying to begin the phrase on an upbeat.
Two Important Points
There are two things to keep in mind in the context of these stubborn upbeats. The first point is that you need to be able to discern whether or not you have turned the beat around. This especially true if you are self taught.
Listening to swing music is mandatory for every trumpet player who desires to learn how to swing in jazz. But it’s absolutely paramount for the trumpet players who are self taught. Without listening on a regular basis, it will be almost impossible for you to know when you’ve got the swing pattern turned around.
The other important point is that, sometimes taking lessons is better than being self taught. In today’s world where everyone has access to almost every piece of trumpet information at their fingertips, the purpose of private trumpet lessons is no longer to share information. No. The purpose of trumpet lessons is to offer professional evaluation and strategic guidance.
A good teacher can tell you when you are swinging incorrectly and help you formulate a strategy to fix the problem.
Play-Along Video Exercises
Like the previous tutorials, this video is about 45 minutes long. The length is by design. The format of repeating each exercise is by design. If you did the previous two tutorials correctly, then this third jazz swing tutorial should be easy.
I don’t remember if I said so in the other tutorials, but it is okay to repeat these video exercises for as many times as you need to. Repeat them until the style is second nature.
