Monroe doesn't swing!

[danmills]

OK, I admit the subject was designed to get your attention. Here's what I'm getting at/wondering. When learning Monroe tunes for the mandolin, like trying to get some of his stuff down note for note, one of the hardest things (among many hard things) is playing those continuous 16th notes fast and WITHOUT swinging the rhythm.

I lack the music notation vocabularly to describe what I mean by "swing". I'm not talking about feel, but rather a very specific way of spacing the notes. I think it has something to do with dotted notes, where one 16th note has slightly longer duration than the next, continuously alternating like that. Monroe seems to shoot notes like a machine gun (most of the time), evenly spaced. When I'm pushing for speed, or even if I'm not sometimes, I find myself swinging when I don't want to, and struggling to avoid it. It really doesn't sound like Monroe style when I swing. I didn't really notice it until I listened to a recording of myself, but then it was obvious.

Any suggestions to help me fix my problem? Exercises? Ways of thinking about it? Explanation for why it's happening that might shed light on how to fix it?

And of course, you're always welcome to dispute my premise if you're so inclined.

Back to the woodshed...

[DavidKOS]

bump

[DavidKOS]

Practicing your scales will help you get faster in any style. Good alternate picking technique helps, as does knowing when to use downstrikes when changing strings.

From the POV of a jazz player, well, Bluegrass doesn't "swing" - but within its own style there is a certain bounce, a way of playing that has an element of early jazz; a lot of BM's tricks would work well on a tenor banjo.

Try slowing down the patterns you want to play and work them up to BM speed, slowly and accurately at first, then gradually faster.

" Monroe seems to shoot notes like a machine gun (most of the time), evenly spaced."

But not evenly accented - thatere's where the drive comes in.

"When I'm pushing for speed, or even if I'm not sometimes, I find myself swinging when I don't want to, and struggling to avoid it. It really doesn't sound like Monroe style when I swing."

Are you really swing the 8ths like a jazz player, or are you playing dotted-8th and 16th notes like ragtime?

[Mark Gunter]

I find the opposite to generally be true, for most people, the faster you play the less swing. So I was a little confused when you wrote, "When I'm pushing for speed, or even if I'm not sometimes, I find myself swinging when I don't want to, and struggling to avoid it."

I may not be interpreting or understanding your meaning correctly. Anyway, from my own experience, I have a very big "problem" similar to this, in that I tend to swing everything I learn and play at least a small bit. I think it has to do with the music that has spoken to me the deepest all my life. Regardless of genre, I like hearing a lot of syncopation in rhythms, and have spent a lot of time playing boogie type rock and blues, etc.

I have found that it is difficult to play bluegrass speed on really fast tunes and have any type of swing - as I mentioned in my first sentence above, the faster you play, the less space you have to develop a swing feel or rhythm. So if I try to speed up a swung beat it either begins to fall apart at a certain tempo or I will have to straighten the beats at a certain tempo. The thing then to practice is to consciously practice such tunes with a straight beat, using a metronome.

"Any suggestions to help me fix my problem? Exercises?"

If your tendency is to swing pretty much everything, as mine is, the way to overcome that is to consciously practice tunes using a straight beat, at many tempos.

Playing straight eights as a solo artist while the band swings the accompaniment a bit really propels a tune. That type of counter-syncopation can be like nitro dumped into the gas line. See Chuck Berry.

[Don Grieser]

You're right; Monroe doesn't swing. Mike Compton would tell you to think tremolo. That's what Monroe's playing is based on. You don't swing when you're playing tremolo, do you?

Set a metronome slow. Divide the beat in 2s, 3s, 4s, 6s, and 8s with your up and down strokes. Keep your upstrokes as loud and as strong as your down strokes and without the swing. At 8s you'll be doing tremolo.

As David mentioned, there is a pulse to Monroe's playing that's based on the fiddle shuffle. I'd worry about that later and just straighten out the timing first.

[Bill McCall]

Listen to Bill’s version of ‘Time Changes Everything’. God awful tone/rhythm deaf break. The man couldn’t swing a cat in a bucket.

My POV, ymmv

[FLATROCK HILL]

When learning Monroe tunes for the mandolin, like trying to get some of his stuff down note for note, one of the hardest things (among many hard things) is playing those continuous 16th notes fast and WITHOUT swinging the rhythm...

...I'm not talking about feel, but rather a very specific way of spacing the notes....

...Any suggestions to help me fix my problem? Exercises? Ways of thinking about it? Explanation for why it's happening that might shed light on how to fix it?

Chris Henry has put a lot of study into Monroe's style. He has his own style of course, but is quite adept at replicating Bill's. I think this short video (which has been discussed here dozens of times) addresses the technical aspects of your question.



If and when you can learn to 'stagger' your 16th notes at will, you'll be well on the way.
I'm still working on it and I'm afraid I'll be working on it 'till they plant me.

[jesserules]

I do not agree with the premise. Bluegrass swings, Old Time doesn't, that's a defining difference.

[DavidKOS]

I do not agree with the premise. Bluegrass swings, Old Time doesn't, that's a defining difference.

Yes, as BG has elements of early jazz and mixed in with the traditional music - but it does not swing like, well swing music.

[Josh Levine]

I feel like saying none of Monroe's music swings is either shortsighted or under researched. He had many tunes that swung. His music encompasses many different styles and evolved throughout his career. So, if you look at certain tunes or certain time periods he is less likely to implement swing rhythm, but plenty of his songs swing. Listen to Rocky Road Blues (the original) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq86msntH6Y

Or his break for Little Cabin Home on the Hill (Starts around 1:50)

Or Bluegrass Stomp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWSeAgwAvi4

Or Heavy Traffic Ahead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwvyNUemJdM

[DavidKOS]

I feel like saying none of Monroe's music swings is either shortsighted or under researched. He had many tunes that swung. His music encompasses many different styles and evolved throughout his career. So, if you look at certain tunes or certain time periods he is less likely to implement swing rhythm, but plenty of his songs swing. Listen to Rocky Road Blues (the original) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq86msntH6Y

Or his break for Little Cabin Home on the Hill (Starts around 1:50)

Or Bluegrass Stomp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWSeAgwAvi4

Or Heavy Traffic Ahead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwvyNUemJdM

That's what I mean when BM's music has elements of early jazz.

That is NOT swing era big band swing rhythm, it has too much 2/4 in it. It's probably influenced by Western Swing, or shares similar influences.

It ain't straight, though!

[T.D.Nydn]

It sounds like your in a rut,,you have a swing type of rythm in your head and can't get out of it.. but it really boils down to your right hand and getting confident with various rythms it can perform..whether picking jazz in accented triplets, or flat out machine gun 16th's or 32nds, it's all in your right hand first (and your brain) to recall the different rythm's you can superimpose over a beat,,

[Mark Gunter]

The OP never wrote what he's working on, but surely neither he nor Don (post #5) meant to comment on the entire Monroe catalog. Good point though, the swingin' tunes Josh posted are great examples of the kind of music I love to play. Unfortunately, I have a strong tendency to swing everything a bit, and have to really practice hard at playing straight eighth notes with an even upstroke for a lot of bluegrass stuff.

[danmills]

OK, my subject line was purposefully provocative, but no I wasn't trying to say Monroe *never* swings, because he certainly could and did, when it suited his purpose. (I would be careful not to confuse syncopation, which he did a lot of, with the swung 16ths that I'm referring to.)

The real point of my post was that *I'm* having trouble not swinging when I shouldn't. The particular piece I was working on is Old Ebenezer Scrooge. I thought I was getting there until I recorded myself and listened to it. The notes were OK, but the rhythm was awful, not at all like Monroe plays it. I'm working on it.

Thanks all for chiming in.

[JonZ]

Try a more expensive pick.

[Andy B]

On October 2, 1941, in Atlanta Georgia, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys recorded “Honky Tonk Swing,” a blues in the key of C. It’s right there in the title.

[DavidKOS]

have to really practice hard at playing straight eighth notes with an even upstroke for a lot of bluegrass stuff.

I get it - and sometimes it seems the upstroke is the accented stroke.

[DavidKOS]

On October 2, 1941, in Atlanta Georgia, Bill Monroe and the Blue Grass Boys recorded “Honky Tonk Swing,” a blues in the key of C. It’s right there in the title.

and like the word "blues", "rag", and so on, calling it such does not make it so.

More operative is the word "Honky Tonk" - that was a driving dance style of its own.

Are we all missing the connection with Honky-tonk music and Western Swing, at the same time BM was making his music - and competing in a ever-widening "country" music market?

[DavidKOS]

Try a more expensive pick.

Is there was way to find out who's ignore list you are on?

[Mark Gunter]

Is there was way to find out who's ignore list you are on?

Interesting question.

I thinks he's just got a thing about making a preemptive strike with that.

[Mark Miller]

I recently had to try to take the swing out of Fisher’s Hornpipe. I think I was hearing its Irish background or something as I learned it, but then the people I was playing it with were all playing it straight. It helped me to get the swung rhythm out of my head to break the tune up into fragments and play them over and over again individually as exercises. Removing them from their musical context helped me stop hearing and feeling each fragment the way I’d been used to. Might work for Old Ebenezer as well.

[Bill McCall]

I feel like saying none of Monroe's music swings is either shortsighted or under researched. He had many tunes that swung. His music encompasses many different styles and evolved throughout his career. So, if you look at certain tunes or certain time periods he is less likely to implement swing rhythm, but plenty of his songs swing. Listen to Rocky Road Blues (the original) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iq86msntH6Y

Or his break for Little Cabin Home on the Hill (Starts around 1:50)

Or Bluegrass Stomp https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IWSeAgwAvi4

Or Heavy Traffic Ahead https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CwvyNUemJdM

Let me clarify my earlier response. While some these tunes have a swingy rhythm accompaniment, Bill’s breaks are not swinging. If there’s a tune where Monroe actually plays a swinging break, I’ve never heard it. None of it has the swing of ‘A Smooth One’, for example.

And ‘having elements’ doesn’t mean a tune ‘has the feel’. They all probably have ‘d’ notes, but they aren’t channeling Bach.

[pops1]

I do not agree with the premise. Bluegrass swings, Old Time doesn't, that's a defining difference.

I would have to disagree with this statement, there is a lot of shuffle by the fiddle and mandolin if you are playing with the fiddle that is long short long short in various patterns. That my friend is swinging.

[danmills]

I recently had to try to take the swing out of Fisher’s Hornpipe. I think I was hearing its Irish background or something as I learned it, but then the people I was playing it with were all playing it straight. It helped me to get the swung rhythm out of my head to break the tune up into fragments and play them over and over again individually as exercises. Removing them from their musical context helped me stop hearing and feeling each fragment the way I’d been used to. Might work for Old Ebenezer as well.

Thanks for your reply, and for staying on topic. Yes, this is what I've been doing pretty much. Old Eb is a pretty repetitive tune, so it lends itself easily to isolating useful fragments. Sadly, I have to drop down to like 80bpm before I can reliably take the swing out and keep it out. Hopefully I can ratchet it back up over the next few days or weeks. And by "back up" I mean back to the still not fast enough tempo I was playing it before!

By the way, when I play Fisher's Hornpipe, I think I swing the melody. Haven't heard it any other way, but I haven't gone looking for it with swung vs staight in mind either.

[ralph johansson]

Are you really swing the 8ths like a jazz player, or are you playing dotted-8th and 16th notes like ragtime?

That's not what I hear in classical ragtime, and certainly not the way it's notated.