THE IMPORTANCE OF RHYTHM UKULELE, IN SONGS FROM THE SWING ERA AND JAZZ/BLUES.
Brian Lemin. June 2012
This is a workshop handout, but with demos by “me”.
Introduction:
Like quite a few ukulele players, it could be said that I came from guitar to ukulele (but there is another story and it is quite long!) but one thing that is short and sweet regarding my ukulele playing is that it owes a great deal to my love of music from the swing era and my love of jazz. Not that this makes me an expert in any of those genres, I have said elsewhere that I am not a good player but I play with passion, the music I love. If that is you then welcome to this discussion on what might possibly be called “Rhythm Ukulele”. Of course that sounds silly because if ukuleles do anything at all, they play “rhythm”. I suppose I want to talk about the kind of rhythm that does not fall into the popular genre of ukulele playing. So here goes. Oh, by the way, I have almost nil knowledge of musical theory, so what I am telling you is from my heart and experience, not from a book at all.
What is Rhythm?
Of course you know what rhythm is, most of us know instinctively how to tap our feet to a tune or clap to a tune. Some people find it hard but I am assuming that you can tap your feet or clap to a tune and keep in reasonable time to with the tune… OK?
I should say that we are going to concentrate on the rhythm that is described as “4 beats to a bar”, the vast majority of swing era music fits into this timing. It is bit like our pulse, that in theory beats 72 times per minute, so each piece of music has a pulse that our ear picks up and we coordinate our clapping or tapping with it. We could probably call this the “beat” of the music. That certainly is rhythm, but when we come to playing music from the swing era we need also to understand what “syncopation” is, as adding syncopation to the beat give the “swing” sound to the music. I need to move on to another heading for this as I might have to get you counting or clapping to illustrate this. So, put you’re your brain into “math” gear… it is simple stuff so don’t worry.
What is Syncopation?
Basically it is accentuating one or more beats that are not normally accentuated. The normal thing is that each of the pulse beats are treated equally (Remember we will only be talking about 4 beats to a bar) so we tap or clap, 1,2,3,4/1,2,3,4/1,2,3,4. So that is non-syncopated rhythm.
Now for just a little aside… my wife and I love Andre Rieu and his Strauss Orchestra. From time to time the people in his audience get so wrapped in what he is playing that they decide to clap. When it is the “Horse” song ( I do not know what the name of the piece is) they all clap together… 1,2,3,4 etc, but every now and again when the rhythm is not so clear half of the audience claps with one rhythm and the other with another rhythm, have you noticed that?
So one group is clapping on the first beat of the bar like this 1.2,3,4 (bold is their clap) the other group is clapping 1,2,3,4. Do see what I am trying to illustrate? Each group is accentuating two of the beats in each bar. Who is right? Well in this case probably neither because most of Rieu’s music is 4 beats to the bar (waltzes etc.. excepted). I suppose I am silly but I like to think that the people who accentuate the first and third beats are the “marchers”.. left… left…left, right, left… but the people who accentuate the 2nd and 4th beats are the “swing” people who feel the need to add syncopation to the piece. (I wish I could have named these people “swingers” but in this day and age that would be inappropriate!)
Have you ever noticed the jazz/swing drummer using brushes on the kettle drum? He slides the brush on the skin for the first beat, then he taps the brush on the skin for the second beat (or variations on this) something like shsss, tap, shsss, tap.
All this to tell you that most songs of the swing era were not written as swing songs but ballads and have a 4/4 timing; then we “swing-people” come along and emphasize the 2nd and 4th beat and give the melody, along with the words, a whole new life. What we have done is to introduced syncopation, i.e. we have accentuated a beat that was not meant to be emphasized, and we have turned the ballad into swing number or even a jazz number.
Pheww, that was hard… I wish you had seen me waving my arms and clapping whilst I sat at the keyboardJ. So before we move on we know about the pulse (beat) and the syncopation we can add by emphasizing a beat.
“Swing” Strumming and the “left” hand.
There is one thing that ukulele payers do well is to strum. They have a whole dictionary of strums at their disposal and most of what visiting Ukulele maestros do is to teach us to strum in so many different ways to create the most amazing sounds from our uke. I love it, but my style of strumming must be so boring compared to the complexities of high end uke strumming. Having said that the strumming which swing music requires is a “two” handed activity; quite a few of the styles require the player to “dampen” the chord you are playing with (of course) your left hand… left handers excluded! So let us have a look at what the left hand has to do whilst you are strumming with your right hand.
What swing and jazz uke players are trying to do is to produce either “Staccato or percussive” sounds alongside their strumming. This is done by momentarily lifting the fingers of the left hand, off the frets and then returning them ready for the next strum beat. This “dampens” the chord you are playing and makes it a sort of “drum” beat (well “sort-of” is the operative word).
If we are going to emphasize the second and 4th beat in each bar, this would sound something like this with the “dum” being the dampened strings:
A: Dum, ching, dum, ching/dum, ching, dum, ching.
More usually the rhythm ukulele player interpreting swing will dampen the chord on the first and the third beat. Like this:
B: Ching, dum, ching, dum/ching, dum, ching, dum
Frequently, to add variation or create a certain effect, the rhythm player will actually dampen the chord on every beat. However to achieve this the damping and raising of the chord with the fingers needs to be done quickly enough to allow something of ring (ching) on every beat, if not it is like the chord we play when we can’t finger it!! i.e. the dull thud, and this is not what we want to do. Maybe I can write it like this:
C: Dum-ing, dum-ing, dum-ing, dum-ing/ dum-ing, dum-ing, dum-ing, dum-ing.
I am sure your left hand will soon get the hang of it.
Swing Strumming and the right hand.
In this section I do not want to get into the complications of where you strum. Suffice to say that uke players usually strum where the fret board and body join, they can also strum closer to the bridge or over the sound hole. All of these and variations of these produce different sounds and can be chosen by the player as to which best suits the song.
Swing and jazz player basically use the straightforward 4 down beats to a bar. Very often with the use of the left hand dampening of the chords/beat, this will suffice to give the tune the “swing” rhythms feel. This is done with the choice of dampening styles (above) accompanied by the judicious use of the right hand.
The right hand can hit the strings on the down stoke, harder, softer or smoother, according the players feel for the song or the singers style of phrasing. Some of these words must be interpreted by the player; but for the sake of this article I will offer the following, which may be very obvious (sorry)
“Harder”, quicker, with power, using the finger nail.
“Softer”, gently, with the pad of the finger/thumb.
“Smoother”. Hold your strumming finger/thumb looser, let it sort of flop across the strings with less pull on the strings as you do it. If you use a pick then hold it losely
I should perhaps mention the use of the pick. I am certainly not against using a pick. I occasionally use a very soft pliable pick, but I do not find that the “usual” guitar pick works very well for the ukulele. Possibly it would work for a Baritone ukulele. You decide for yourself when and if you use a pick.
Now I will move into the “dreaded” down and up strokes.L
I hate teaching the down and up strokes, but here goes!
So much of ukulele strumming invokes, sometimes very complicated, down and up strokes. I am afraid I give up when faced with diagrams full of up and down arrows or the even worse D and U letters. Having said that, it is absolutely necessary for a rhythm ukulele player to use these strokes as they really do bring us back to the beginning, in that they create the required “syncopation” of rhythm ukulele playing.
I am convinced that jazz certainly is an improvised music form for both the rhythm back-up players as well as the front line instruments.
I suppose I could teach it to you, but it would involve all this talk about1/8th notes and 1/16th notes, as you divide the four beats in a bar to its component parts. I really do not want to go into all that but what I do want to do is to encourage you to use the up strokes in an imaginative and creative manner (syncopated manner), in conjunction with the rhythmic dampening of the chords.
It can be as simple as D, D, u D, D/ with the up being quick brush of the strings (or harder if you like) I guess it would be say, a 1/16th length. Quite short anyway.
It could well be D,u D,u D,u D,u/ or any other variation of an upbeat between the 4/4 downbeats.
Of course up strokes can be “the” 4/4 time, or a slow “arpeggio”. It can indicate the end of a section to your fellow players/singers; and on and on I could go, but that is your creative improvisation. Just one tip? I like to use a different style for each verse on occasions. I get a good kick out of that even if my front line people have no idea what is happening behind them!
Advanced chords and playing up the fret board.
I can hear you groan as you read that sub heading, but I cannot escape saying that unless you are willing to stretch your chord knowledge and fingering to the more advanced chords (which are usually but not always, up the fret board) you will not create that true, swing or jazzy sound. I can’t teach these to you; you have the chord books and diagram grids, you will just have to practice them. They nearly all require the use of the bar (barre) by the first finger and really, it is quite easy to learn and opens up a whole new world of sounds. Their use turns ordinary rhythm back-up into innovative magical harmonies that your singers will love and your audience will be amazed at. Find some arrangements on the internet that use these chords in songs that you know and like, just hear the difference that these chords make to that song which have known for so long. Don’t give up on it… you can do it, just read below in my conclusion and “confession”… it will just have to encourage you.
Conclusion (and Confession)
This article has been written for those who are interested in playing songs that appear less frequently in the typical ukulele repertoire. Though much of what is above can fit in well in many of those songs. This style of strumming fits well in those songs which have a generic label as being from the “Great American Songbook”, those many, many, songs that have stood the test of time and have been popular in every generation since they were first composed (even earlier than the 1920’s!) The Jazz musicians, the swing bands, ex rock and rollers and a few ukulele groups play and enjoy them every day. Why don’t you give them a try?
Now to the confession; I love those so called advanced chords and if I can I try to play them as much as I can. Sure I can’t remember the shapes or the fret number for a C7+5-9 chord so I add the chord grid (just like they did when first publishing the sheet music) to my music. I need to tell you one other thing, it is not a boast as I do not think much about it at all, but I have only three useable fingers on my left hand (fret board hand) and I can play pretty much any chord that is thrown my way. So, if I can do it with three fingers, so can you. [but it might be difficult if you only have "two" fingers to make the chord!!!]
Brian Lemin. June 2012
This is a workshop handout, but with demos by “me”.
Introduction:
Like quite a few ukulele players, it could be said that I came from guitar to ukulele (but there is another story and it is quite long!) but one thing that is short and sweet regarding my ukulele playing is that it owes a great deal to my love of music from the swing era and my love of jazz. Not that this makes me an expert in any of those genres, I have said elsewhere that I am not a good player but I play with passion, the music I love. If that is you then welcome to this discussion on what might possibly be called “Rhythm Ukulele”. Of course that sounds silly because if ukuleles do anything at all, they play “rhythm”. I suppose I want to talk about the kind of rhythm that does not fall into the popular genre of ukulele playing. So here goes. Oh, by the way, I have almost nil knowledge of musical theory, so what I am telling you is from my heart and experience, not from a book at all.
What is Rhythm?
Of course you know what rhythm is, most of us know instinctively how to tap our feet to a tune or clap to a tune. Some people find it hard but I am assuming that you can tap your feet or clap to a tune and keep in reasonable time to with the tune… OK?
I should say that we are going to concentrate on the rhythm that is described as “4 beats to a bar”, the vast majority of swing era music fits into this timing. It is bit like our pulse, that in theory beats 72 times per minute, so each piece of music has a pulse that our ear picks up and we coordinate our clapping or tapping with it. We could probably call this the “beat” of the music. That certainly is rhythm, but when we come to playing music from the swing era we need also to understand what “syncopation” is, as adding syncopation to the beat give the “swing” sound to the music. I need to move on to another heading for this as I might have to get you counting or clapping to illustrate this. So, put you’re your brain into “math” gear… it is simple stuff so don’t worry.
What is Syncopation?
Basically it is accentuating one or more beats that are not normally accentuated. The normal thing is that each of the pulse beats are treated equally (Remember we will only be talking about 4 beats to a bar) so we tap or clap, 1,2,3,4/1,2,3,4/1,2,3,4. So that is non-syncopated rhythm.
Now for just a little aside… my wife and I love Andre Rieu and his Strauss Orchestra. From time to time the people in his audience get so wrapped in what he is playing that they decide to clap. When it is the “Horse” song ( I do not know what the name of the piece is) they all clap together… 1,2,3,4 etc, but every now and again when the rhythm is not so clear half of the audience claps with one rhythm and the other with another rhythm, have you noticed that?
So one group is clapping on the first beat of the bar like this 1.2,3,4 (bold is their clap) the other group is clapping 1,2,3,4. Do see what I am trying to illustrate? Each group is accentuating two of the beats in each bar. Who is right? Well in this case probably neither because most of Rieu’s music is 4 beats to the bar (waltzes etc.. excepted). I suppose I am silly but I like to think that the people who accentuate the first and third beats are the “marchers”.. left… left…left, right, left… but the people who accentuate the 2nd and 4th beats are the “swing” people who feel the need to add syncopation to the piece. (I wish I could have named these people “swingers” but in this day and age that would be inappropriate!)
Have you ever noticed the jazz/swing drummer using brushes on the kettle drum? He slides the brush on the skin for the first beat, then he taps the brush on the skin for the second beat (or variations on this) something like shsss, tap, shsss, tap.
All this to tell you that most songs of the swing era were not written as swing songs but ballads and have a 4/4 timing; then we “swing-people” come along and emphasize the 2nd and 4th beat and give the melody, along with the words, a whole new life. What we have done is to introduced syncopation, i.e. we have accentuated a beat that was not meant to be emphasized, and we have turned the ballad into swing number or even a jazz number.
Pheww, that was hard… I wish you had seen me waving my arms and clapping whilst I sat at the keyboardJ. So before we move on we know about the pulse (beat) and the syncopation we can add by emphasizing a beat.
“Swing” Strumming and the “left” hand.
There is one thing that ukulele payers do well is to strum. They have a whole dictionary of strums at their disposal and most of what visiting Ukulele maestros do is to teach us to strum in so many different ways to create the most amazing sounds from our uke. I love it, but my style of strumming must be so boring compared to the complexities of high end uke strumming. Having said that the strumming which swing music requires is a “two” handed activity; quite a few of the styles require the player to “dampen” the chord you are playing with (of course) your left hand… left handers excluded! So let us have a look at what the left hand has to do whilst you are strumming with your right hand.
What swing and jazz uke players are trying to do is to produce either “Staccato or percussive” sounds alongside their strumming. This is done by momentarily lifting the fingers of the left hand, off the frets and then returning them ready for the next strum beat. This “dampens” the chord you are playing and makes it a sort of “drum” beat (well “sort-of” is the operative word).
If we are going to emphasize the second and 4th beat in each bar, this would sound something like this with the “dum” being the dampened strings:
A: Dum, ching, dum, ching/dum, ching, dum, ching.
More usually the rhythm ukulele player interpreting swing will dampen the chord on the first and the third beat. Like this:
B: Ching, dum, ching, dum/ching, dum, ching, dum
Frequently, to add variation or create a certain effect, the rhythm player will actually dampen the chord on every beat. However to achieve this the damping and raising of the chord with the fingers needs to be done quickly enough to allow something of ring (ching) on every beat, if not it is like the chord we play when we can’t finger it!! i.e. the dull thud, and this is not what we want to do. Maybe I can write it like this:
C: Dum-ing, dum-ing, dum-ing, dum-ing/ dum-ing, dum-ing, dum-ing, dum-ing.
I am sure your left hand will soon get the hang of it.
Swing Strumming and the right hand.
In this section I do not want to get into the complications of where you strum. Suffice to say that uke players usually strum where the fret board and body join, they can also strum closer to the bridge or over the sound hole. All of these and variations of these produce different sounds and can be chosen by the player as to which best suits the song.
Swing and jazz player basically use the straightforward 4 down beats to a bar. Very often with the use of the left hand dampening of the chords/beat, this will suffice to give the tune the “swing” rhythms feel. This is done with the choice of dampening styles (above) accompanied by the judicious use of the right hand.
The right hand can hit the strings on the down stoke, harder, softer or smoother, according the players feel for the song or the singers style of phrasing. Some of these words must be interpreted by the player; but for the sake of this article I will offer the following, which may be very obvious (sorry)
“Harder”, quicker, with power, using the finger nail.
“Softer”, gently, with the pad of the finger/thumb.
“Smoother”. Hold your strumming finger/thumb looser, let it sort of flop across the strings with less pull on the strings as you do it. If you use a pick then hold it losely
I should perhaps mention the use of the pick. I am certainly not against using a pick. I occasionally use a very soft pliable pick, but I do not find that the “usual” guitar pick works very well for the ukulele. Possibly it would work for a Baritone ukulele. You decide for yourself when and if you use a pick.
Now I will move into the “dreaded” down and up strokes.L
I hate teaching the down and up strokes, but here goes!
So much of ukulele strumming invokes, sometimes very complicated, down and up strokes. I am afraid I give up when faced with diagrams full of up and down arrows or the even worse D and U letters. Having said that, it is absolutely necessary for a rhythm ukulele player to use these strokes as they really do bring us back to the beginning, in that they create the required “syncopation” of rhythm ukulele playing.
I am convinced that jazz certainly is an improvised music form for both the rhythm back-up players as well as the front line instruments.
I suppose I could teach it to you, but it would involve all this talk about1/8th notes and 1/16th notes, as you divide the four beats in a bar to its component parts. I really do not want to go into all that but what I do want to do is to encourage you to use the up strokes in an imaginative and creative manner (syncopated manner), in conjunction with the rhythmic dampening of the chords.
It can be as simple as D, D, u D, D/ with the up being quick brush of the strings (or harder if you like) I guess it would be say, a 1/16th length. Quite short anyway.
It could well be D,u D,u D,u D,u/ or any other variation of an upbeat between the 4/4 downbeats.
Of course up strokes can be “the” 4/4 time, or a slow “arpeggio”. It can indicate the end of a section to your fellow players/singers; and on and on I could go, but that is your creative improvisation. Just one tip? I like to use a different style for each verse on occasions. I get a good kick out of that even if my front line people have no idea what is happening behind them!
Advanced chords and playing up the fret board.
I can hear you groan as you read that sub heading, but I cannot escape saying that unless you are willing to stretch your chord knowledge and fingering to the more advanced chords (which are usually but not always, up the fret board) you will not create that true, swing or jazzy sound. I can’t teach these to you; you have the chord books and diagram grids, you will just have to practice them. They nearly all require the use of the bar (barre) by the first finger and really, it is quite easy to learn and opens up a whole new world of sounds. Their use turns ordinary rhythm back-up into innovative magical harmonies that your singers will love and your audience will be amazed at. Find some arrangements on the internet that use these chords in songs that you know and like, just hear the difference that these chords make to that song which have known for so long. Don’t give up on it… you can do it, just read below in my conclusion and “confession”… it will just have to encourage you.
Conclusion (and Confession)
This article has been written for those who are interested in playing songs that appear less frequently in the typical ukulele repertoire. Though much of what is above can fit in well in many of those songs. This style of strumming fits well in those songs which have a generic label as being from the “Great American Songbook”, those many, many, songs that have stood the test of time and have been popular in every generation since they were first composed (even earlier than the 1920’s!) The Jazz musicians, the swing bands, ex rock and rollers and a few ukulele groups play and enjoy them every day. Why don’t you give them a try?
Now to the confession; I love those so called advanced chords and if I can I try to play them as much as I can. Sure I can’t remember the shapes or the fret number for a C7+5-9 chord so I add the chord grid (just like they did when first publishing the sheet music) to my music. I need to tell you one other thing, it is not a boast as I do not think much about it at all, but I have only three useable fingers on my left hand (fret board hand) and I can play pretty much any chord that is thrown my way. So, if I can do it with three fingers, so can you. [but it might be difficult if you only have "two" fingers to make the chord!!!]