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Clarity - Written Music

Veggie Dave

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I think I already know the answer to this but which one of these written examples would you prefer to see if you were handed a song at a rehearsal/jam?

The upper section represents the swing feel far more, however if I was playing to a swing rhythm then I'd probably swing the lower example automatically. The lower is easier to read but the upper is more accurate and, I think, leaves the reader in no doubt that they should swing these bars.

What do you think?

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but the upper is more accurate and, I think, leaves the reader in no doubt that they should swing these bars

On the contrary, I would not regard a dotted note as a shorthand for swing rhythm, so in the first example I would play the first two quavers as a strict dotted rhythm rather than a swing rhythm and probably play the rest of the quavers unswung.

In the second example I would expect either to play all the quavers swung or none of them.
 
The dotted eighth (quaver) sixteenth (semiquaver) rhythm is really a shuffle. I generally see a swing tune notated as in the second example, with "swing feel" at the top of the page.
 
I've gone back and decided that it has to be the upper version as there can't be any vagueness in the rhythm otherwise it won't sit with the other sections properly.

Thanks everyone. Hopefully they'll be a new song, dots and backing track coming soon, It should even make a good Impro Of The Month challenge, too.
 
Here is another take. In modern practice "swing" quavers or eighth notes are played as a triplet figure with the first two tied together. This produces a 2 to 1 ratio. A dotted eighth sixteenth (dotted quaver semiquaver?) is a 3 to 1 ratio. In some instances when the composer or arrange wants a "ricky tick" effect he/she will write the dotted rhythm, sometimes with a staccato dot over the first.
 

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