1

From microtiming to microdynamics: systematic irregularities and

their relationship to swing and groove.

Abstract

‘Swing’ and ‘groove’ are concepts which can be difficult to define, but it’s clear that
patterns of systematic deviations from regular metronomic time constitute at least
part of what is meant by these terms. In addition to timing irregularities, we can also
observe similar systemic deviations from the mean in other parameters, such as in
dynamics at the level of individual notes (dynamic accents), with accent patterns
considered by many jazz musicians to play an important role in creating swing, for
example. Despite this, there has been little research to date on the effects of
dynamic variation on swing, with most studies focusing solely on timing. Attempts to
incorporate swing and groove into electronic music composition have also generally
focused on manipulating timing (usually through applying uniform swing percentages
or ratios) as opposed to dynamics. This study examined 4 extracts from piano solos
by canonical jazz pianists, using audio-to-MIDI conversion software to analyse the
timing and dynamic levels of individual notes. Manipulated versions of these extracts
were then created, where either the variation in dynamics or the variation in swing
percentage (a way of expressing the ratio between the duration of onbeat and
offbeat quavers) was eliminated. These extracts were then used in a blind online
listening test to determine the effect of these manipulations on the perceived
musicality of the extracts (finding that a statistically significant reduction in perceived
musicality was produced by eliminating dynamic variation but not by eliminating
swing percentage variation). In addition, the ‘extract groove’ function in the Ableton
Live Digital Audio Workstation (DAW) was used to create groove templates from
each of the 4 solos, which were then applied to other jazz compositions (essentially
extracting the timing and dynamic variations from one performance and applying
them to another piece). These clips were also included in the online listening test,
along with other clips of the same extracts quantised to uniform swing percentages
(50%, 57%, 60% and 67%) to act as a control. The ‘extracted groove’ clips were
rated on average around the same level as the highest performing uniform swing
 2

percentage, suggesting that this may be a viable method to explore for electronic
composition, but that further refinement will be required in order for this to be reliably
effective.

Swing and Microtiming

Systematic irregularities in timing are recognised to exist in many styles of music.

While jazz is perhaps the genre where these concepts are consciously articulated
and discussed most often, similar patterns of small irregularities in timing (or
microtiming irregularities) have also been observed to play a role in many other
musics. Systematic unevenness of timing is recognised to be an important part of
what’s meant by swing, and the same is true to some extent for the idea of ‘groove’
(although this tends to be an even more amorphous and difficult to define concept
than swing).

In addition to the body of research on microtiming and swing in jazz (Benadon, 2006;
Busse, 2002; Butterfield, 2010 and 2011; Collier & Collier, 1994; Friberg &
Sundström, 1997 and 2002; Prögler, 1995; Wesolowski, 2016), some other genres
which have been researched on this question include Hip Hop and Cuban folkloric
music as well as western classical music (Alén, 1995; Bilmes, 1993; Drake and
Palmer, 1993; Frane, 2017).

The idea of irregularity itself being an essential aspect of music is something that has
been widely expressed. Charles Keil (1987), for example, believes that systematic
irregularities (which he calls ‘participatory discrepancies’ or PDs) are essential to “the
power of music”:

“Music, to be personally involving and socially valuable, must be “out of time”

and “out of tune.””1

1
Charles Keil, ‘Participatory discrepancies and the power of music’. Cultural Anthropology, No. 3 (1987), 275.
 3

Multi-instrumental and composer Barak Schmool, who teaches jazz and world
rhythms at Trinity Laban, the Guildhall School of Music, and the Royal Academy of
Music in London, suggests in an interview that metronomic time shouldn’t be treated
as an ideal to aim for:

“The body doesn’t make a metronome, and nobody knew what perfect time
was until someone invented a computer, probably.”2

For Schmool as well as Keil, deviations from metronomic perfection are an essential,
inevitable feature of any human-made music.

This question has also taken on a political dimension, with Keil relating the focus on
details of microtiming deviations and other PDs (as opposed to ideas of form and
syntax which tend to dominate more traditional musicology) to a more democratic
and participatory and a less Eurocentric view of music. This is in stated opposition to
the approach of Leonard Meyer, which Keil criticises for its bias towards the western
classical tradition.3

In jazz, the most important way in which systematic irregularities manifest

themselves (or at least the most obvious way) is through the uneven timing of
quavers, where off-beat quavers are consistently played with shorter durations than
on-beat quavers. This is often described as a triplet rhythm, forming a 2:1 ratio
between the on-beat and off-beat quavers (i.e., two written quavers would be played
as a triplet crotchet followed by a triplet quaver). Hal Crook states in How To
Improvise, for example, that swung quavers “can be described using triplet notation”,
and that “the upbeat attack occurs on (or near) the last 3rd of the beat”, while John
Riley (drummer and author of The Art Of Bop Drumming) considers that “triplet
phrasing is fairly close to the way most jazz drummers think of the ride pattern”. 4 5

2
Barak Schmool, personal communication, 9/5/18.
3
Charles Keil, ‘The theory of participatory discrepancies: A progress report’. Ethnomusicology 39, No. 1 (1995),
1.
4
Hal Crook, How to Improvise: An Approach to Practicing Improvisation. Mainz: Advance Music GmbH, 2015, 32.
5
John Riley, The Art of Bop Drumming. Van Nuys: Alfred Publishing, 2005, 7.
 4

While these statements (from two of the standard texts of jazz education) stop short
of drawing an unqualified equivalence between swung quavers and triplets, it can
still easily be argued that they present a simplistic and somewhat misleading
impression of the way that swung rhythms are really played. In practice, the ratio
between on-beat and off-beat quavers varies considerably according to many
factors, most notably tempo, instrument, personal style, and the time feel of the
piece, amongst other considerations. Taking into account these factors, Vijay Iyer
(jazz pianist and academic) gives a more nuanced description of what he considers
swung quavers to be in his PhD thesis:

“[swung quavers] are occasionally rendered in triplet notation as a quarter

note followed by an eighth note, but this exaggerates the typical swing ratio,
which is usually in the gray area between duple and triple and is strongly
tempo-dependent (typically lower for fast tempi and higher for slow ones)."6

While this unevenness in timing is sometimes treated as being synonymous with

swing (leaving aside the exact ratio for a moment), most jazz musicians have a more
complex idea of what swing really means, one which may include other
considerations such as accent patterns and alignment between instruments as well
as a more general sense of rhythmical drive and movement. Saxophonist Martin
Speake emphasises this latter aspect in his own conception of what constitutes
swing:

“I don’t think it’s to do with the, what you call the unevenness, in a literal way.
[…] I think it’s all to do with forward motion. Momentum – why the music
sounds amazing. Why the music swings, in jazz. Probably in other musics as
well.”7

Some of the other factors which contribute to a sense of ‘forward motion’ besides
‘unevenness’ of timing can be considered to be forms of irregularity which are
somewhat analogous to timing deviations: for example, the pattern of accents of

6
Vijay S. Iyer, ‘Microstructures of feel, macrostructures of sound: Embodied cognition in West African and
African-American musics’. PhD Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley, 1998, 63.
7
Martin Speake, personal communication, 11/5/18.
 5

notes within a bar may follow a certain pattern of deviation from the mean, with
certain notes tending to be louder, in the same way that off-beat quavers tend to be
slightly shorter than on-beat quavers.

Speake specifically mentions this as an important factor in swing:

“Lee Konitz and Warne Marsh, they can play a whole two bars of quavers, but
because of where they accent, I suppose you could say that brings the swing
to the music – the accents. I think it’s a big part of it, actually.”8

Although this is considered to be an important aspect of what makes music swing or

groove, most research to date has overlooked this area and has focused only on
timing.

Iyer argues that systematic irregularities have important musical functions, stating in
relation to the results of one microtiming study that “it is clear that small performance
variations in timing, intensity, and duration enhance aspects of musical structure.”9
Iyer proposes the idea that one of swing’s functions in jazz may be to clarify the
metre, by making it more apparent which are the on-beat and which are the off-beat
quavers, instead of having a steady stream of isochronous quavers which would
have more potential for ambiguity.

As well as pointing to possible structural functions of microtiming irregularities, Iyer

also makes a link to ideas of embodiment and human movement, suggesting that
systematic irregularities may have their origins at least in part in the physical
considerations of dance and instrumental technique: “musical motion is, first and
foremost, audible human motion.”10

Movement (whether relating to dance, instrumental technique, or something else) is

a similarly important part of Schmool’s concept of swing:

8
Ibid.
9
Iyer, ‘Microstructures of feel, macrostructures of sound’, 59.
10
Ibid., 25.
 6

“Swing and movement are not separate. To make swing, humans have to
make a movement, even if it’s just your tongue. So your body making a
movement is making a swing, they’re the same thing. We call one swing
because it has a sound and we call something else a movement because it
doesn’t have a sound, but rhythmically they’re the same.”11

One of the implications of placing “human motion” at the centre of our conception of
swing is that we would then expect swing to be something which would be difficult to
produce by non-human means (i.e., by a drum machine or through computer-based
composition).

Music and dance are seen as inseparable aspects of the same activity in many
cultures (particularly in the styles of sub-Saharan African music which jazz largely
derives from), and it’s not surprising that these are the musical cultures where
expressive microtiming variations seem to play a more important role (taking into
account the aforementioned connections between microtiming and human
movement). Looking from this perspective, it also seems to make sense that western
classical music, perhaps one of the genres where music is most separate from
dance and movement (with audiences not expected to dance), is also one of the
genres where concepts such as swing and groove (and their associated systematic
irregularities) play much less of a role.

In jazz, a player’s ability to swing is seen as an important aspect of what makes up

their personal style (in a genre where individuality is valued), and swing is
sometimes even seen as being a more important aspect of the music than the notes
themselves. Bassist Chuck Israels, quoted in Berliner’s Thinking In Jazz, says in
relation to swing:

“I appreciate the way that Tommy Flanagan swings, the way that Barry Harris
swings, the great pulse that Hank Jones and Bill Evans have – and every one
of them is different.”12

11
Barak Schmool, personal communication, 9/5/18.
12
Paul Berliner, Thinking in Jazz: The Infinite Art of Improvisation. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994.
 7

Martin Speake also emphasises the wide variation in the way that different great
players swing:

“Take different players – Dexter Gordon sounds quite straight a lot of the time,
Coltrane does, in fact. But someone like Cannonball Adderley is more
obviously swung in the traditional sense of the way people describe that.”13

Several studies have been conducted which relate in some way to measuring swing
ratios in jazz (Collier and Collier, 2002; Friberg & Sundström, 1997; Busse, 2002;
Ellis, 1991; Honing & Haas, 2008; Rose, 1989). Most of the studies I consulted which
measured swing percentage found the average percentage of each performance to
lie somewhere between 50% (straight) and 67% (triplet swing), with the exception of
the slowest performances in Friberg & Sundström’s 1997 study (this study looked
specifically at the swing percentage of the ride cymbal pattern, which has been
observed to be systematically higher than that of other instruments)14, and the Rose
study which stands out for using a particularly slow tempo for this style.15 The
average swing ratios were generally closer to quintuplet swing (60%) than triplet
swing, with Ellis finding that the mean swing ratio of the saxophonists studied was
1.7 (equating to a swing percentage of 63%), and Collier and Collier finding the
average swing ratio in two Louis Armstrong solos was 62.5%.

It is widely recognised amongst jazz musicians that swing does not function the
same way at all tempos, with quavers becoming much more even at fast tempos
than they are at slower tempos.16 17 This is partly due to practical considerations,
since maintaining an uneven ratio between each quaver becomes increasingly
difficult (and unnatural-sounding) as the tempo increases, and at some point the
swing will inevitably even out as a matter of technical necessity. This brings another
perspective to the relationship between microtiming and instrumental technique.

13
Martin Speake, personal communication, 11/5/18.
14
Anders Friberg and Andreas Sundström, ‘Preferred swing ratio in jazz as a function of tempo.’ Speech, Music,
and Hearing: Quarterly Progress and Status Report 38.4 (1997), 19-27.
15
Richard Franklin Rose, ‘An analysis of timing in jazz rhythm section performance’. PhD dissertation, University
of Texas at Austin, 1989.
16
Iyer, ‘Microstructures of feel, macrostructures of sound’, 63.
17
Martin Speake, personal communication, 11/5/18.
 8

Despite this, there is surprisingly not universal agreement in the research literature
that there is even any relationship between tempo and swing. While Friberg &
Sundström (1997), Collier & Collier (1996) and Honing & Haas (2008) do find a
relationship, Busse (2002) and Frane (2017) do not. The most probable explanation
for this in case of Frane’s study is that the extracts studied covered a fairly narrow
range of tempos (as well as coming from related genres of funk and soul as opposed
to straight ahead jazz). For Busse, the unusual method used to calculate the swing
ratio, by finding the relationship between the off-beat notes of the performer and the
underlying metronome grid, as opposed to measuring where the off-beat notes are
placed in relation to the performer’s own on-beat notes, is one possible reason for
this finding.18

Outside of jazz, Frane’s 2017 study looked at swing levels in hip hop drum breaks
(the short sampled drum patterns which play an important role in many styles of hip
hop). The median swing percentage found in the breaks studied was 54%, and 29
out of the 30 breaks studied had a swing percentage which fell somewhere 50% and
67%, as is typical in jazz.19

In Olavo Alén’s examination of Cuban tumba francesa, there is much attention paid
to exact measurements of the relationship between rhythmic onsets, but less
examination of what the purpose or function of these rhythmic discrepancies might
be. In Alén’s study, for example, the basic rhythmic pattern of each instrument is
examined in close detail, with the exact average deviation of each note in the pattern
being calculated down to a tenth of a percentage point, but little discussion of why
these deviations fall into the pattern that they do or of what their effect is (if any) on
the listener’s experience of the music.20

Alén does point out the possibility that some of the timing deviations he observes
may have their origins at least in part in instrumental technique.21 This relates to

18
Walter Gerard Busse, ‘Toward Objective Measurement and Evaluation of Jazz Piano Performance Via MIDI-
Based Groove Quantize Templates’, Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal Vol. 19, No. 3 (Spring 2002),
443-461.
19
Andrew V. Frane, ‘Swing rhythm in classic drum breaks from hip-hop’s breakbeat canon’. Music Perception: An
Interdisciplinary Journal 34, No. 3 (2017), 291-302.
20
Olavo Alén. ‘Rhythm as Duration of Sounds in Tumba Francesa’. Ethnomusicology 39, No. 1 (1995), 55–71.
21
Alén, ‘Rhythm as Duration of Sounds in Tumba Francesa’, 69.
 9

similar points made by Iyer about human movement and its importance to musical
experience. The fact that timing deviations may seem to derive from instrumental
technique does not imply that they are not an important aesthetic feature of the
music, however. It’s quite plausible that the fact that a particular design of instrument
produces a particular kind of swing when it is played in a specific way is the reason
why that instrument came to be played in that way in a particular style.

Swing and Technology

Since the early days of electronic music, musicians have sought to incorporate
elements of irregularity into their music to avoid a robotic, mechanical feel (although
this has not always universally been seen as a bad thing and was welcomed by the
early figures in Detroit Techno, for example, as it complemented the futurist,
technology-oriented aesthetic of their music).22 Swing features were included in early
drum machines such as the Akai MPC range (going back as early as Roger Linn’s
LM-1 Drum Computer in 1979) and the Roland TR-909 (first introduced in 1983).
Using these devices, it’s possible to apply a specific level of swing to the whole drum
pattern, effectively delaying every even-numbered subdivision by a uniform amount.
The intention behind this was to make the music groove in a way which was
impossible with perfectly regular timing. Making the music more descriptive of human
movement was another commonly-stated goal (something which is linked closely to
ideas of swing in general), and this is something that was explicitly outlined by Roger
Linn, the designer of the LM-1:

“Between 50% and around 70% are lots of wonderful little settings that, for a
particular beat and tempo, can change a rigid beat into something that makes
people move.”23

22
Barrett Watten. "The Constructivist Moment: From El Lissitzky To Detroit Techno." Qui Parle 11, No. 1 (1997):
83-86.
23
Greg Scarth & Roger Linn, ‘Roger Linn on swing, groove, and the magic of the MPC’s timing’. Attack
Magazine, 2nd July 2013. Retrieved 18/4/18 from: https://www.attackmagazine.com/technique/passing-
notes/daw-drum-machine-swing/.
 10

These devices used percentages to express levels of swing, with the percentage
describing how far through the beat the swung note would fall – so 67% would mean
a triplet swing, or 2:1 ratio, 75% would mean a 3:1 ratio, equating to a dotted rhythm,
and 50% would mean completely straight, without any swing.24

More recently, as the technological practicalities of electronic music-making have

evolved, this same concept has carried over from the drum machine to the Digital
Audio Workstation (DAW). All of the most commonly-used DAWs – Logic, Ableton
Live, Pro Tools, Digital Performer, Cubase, Reason – now offer the ability to apply
swing to MIDI data in the same way as the early drum machines (although usually
somewhat more sophisticated). Some of these programs even include presets which
are designed to emulate the specific swing sound of the Akai MPC. As well as being
a testament to how influential this range of drum machines has proved to be, this
also brings another perspective to the complex relationship between the human
performer and technology in electronic music, since we have a sophisticated piece of
technology (the DAW) trying to copy the way an ostensibly far less sophisticated
piece of technology (the Akai MPC) itself imitates human musicians.

While some DAWs use the same convention as Akai, where 50% means no swing
and 67% means triplet swing, Ableton Live and some others (somewhat confusingly)
use a different system where no swing is designated as 0%. The rationale behind
this is presumably that it makes sense on one level to equate ‘no swing’ with 0%
rather than 50%. However, using Akai’s convention makes it significantly easier to
conceptualise how particular swing levels relate to each other: for example, we can
immediately understand that a swing of 58% will lie roughly halfway between straight
(50%) and triplet swing (67%).

Going beyond the ability to apply a certain swing percentage to a performance, some
DAWs are now able to ‘extract’ a groove from one audio or MIDI clip, which can then
be applied to other performances. The ‘extracted groove’ file will contain data
relating to the timing of each individual note in relation to the underlying grid, as well
as the dynamic level of each note (or velocity, in MIDI terminology). In Ableton Live,

24
Greg Scarth & Oliver Curry. ‘DAW and Drum Machine Swing’, Attack Magazine, 1st July 2013. Retrieved
18/4/18 from: https://www.attackmagazine.com/features/interview/roger- linn-swing-groove-magic-mpc-timing/.
 11

once a groove is extracted, it can be edited, modified, and saved in a groove library
along with the default grooves, and can then be applied to any other audio or MIDI
clip as desired.

The ‘extract groove’ feature opens up new possibilities both for examining how
microtiming functions, and for exploring new ways of incorporating groove in
electronic composition. By extracting grooves from real human performances, can
we gain new insights into swing percentage, its manifestations in different styles and
tempos, and the way it varies within a performance? The ability to include the
relative dynamics of notes in an extracted groove as well as their timings opens up
another potential avenue for investigation.

The clear potential problem with ‘extracted grooves’ is that timing and dynamic
irregularities may be connected to melody and to other contextual factors in a way
which makes it impossible to separate them from their original context while retaining
their meaning and effect. It’s plausible that while some kinds of irregularity may be
intimately tied up with their immediate contexts, others may be more generalisable,
and that it may be possible to come up with archetypal models of irregularities for a
specific style, feel, or groove.

In Busse’s 2002 study, the groove function in the Performer DAW (the precursor to
Digital Performer) was used to create “derived performance models” from the
performances of three professional jazz pianists. One-measure extracts were chosen
from each solo which contained note onsets on each of the 8 quaver subdivisions of
the bar, which could then be applied to quantise the whole performance. The study
found that the “derived performance models” were rated more “representative of the
swing style” by a group of experts than pure 67% swing (triplet swing), 60% (3:2 or
quintuplet swing), or 50% (straight quavers).25

This provides some evidence that deriving models of swing from real performances
can be more effective than using pure swing percentages. In this study, however, it
is difficult to identify exactly what it was about the derived models that caused them

25
Busse, ‘Toward Objective Measurement and Evaluation of Jazz Piano Performance Via MIDI-Based Groove
Quantize Templates’, 443-461.
 12

to be rated higher than the mechanical models – was it the swing percentage itself,
the variability of the swing percentage over the course of a bar, or a combination of
these factors?

Another possible limitation of Busse’s study is the criterion which was used to judge
the extracts: the experts chosen were asked to rate the clips on their
“representativeness of the swing style”. This is potentially problematic, since “the
swing style” could easily be seen to refer more narrowly to the specific genre of jazz
which dominated in the 30s and 40s, rather than to any jazz which swings, and could
therefore cause extracts which are in a more modern rhythmic style (still swinging,
but not “the swing style”, narrowly-defined) to be rated lower.

Busse chooses to calculate the swing percentage of the off-beat quavers in relation
to the metronome, as opposed to the performer’s own on-beat notes. It seems that it
would be more meaningful to measure the relationship between the timing of the off-
beat notes with the on-beat notes in the same line, as opposed to comparing them
with a metronomic background while ignoring the timing of the on-beat notes. This is
especially the case since one of Busse’s findings is that “a significant correlation was
observed between downbeat placement and upbeat placement (r = .65), suggesting
a possible actual shift or delay of the temporal framework away from the given
constant metronomic click”. This observation that soloists tend to play systematically
behind or ahead of the underlying beat (defined by the rhythm section or by a click
track) is something that has been corroborated by other research, with Butterfield’s
2010 study finding that soloists played between 50ms and 80ms behind the bass
and drums.26

Despite these limitations, Busse’s finding that “derived performance models”

outperformed uniform swing ratios is an interesting one and deserves to be explored
further. In particular, it might be instructive to try to separate out the different aspects
of the derived models in order to find which factors (the swing percentage itself, the
variation in swing percentage, or the accent pattern) are most important.

26
Matthew Butterfield, ‘Participatory Discrepancies and the Perception of Beats in Jazz’.
Music Perception: An Interdisciplinary Journal, Vol. 27 No. 3, February 2010, 157-176.
 13

Research Questions

1: Using the audio-MIDI conversion feature in Ableton Live, can we observe

differences in swing and other systematic irregularities between performances of
different jazz pianists?
2: Using the same method, can we observe in the same extracts any differences in
the way swing operates at different tempos?
3: To what extent is a sense of ‘swing’ created purely from the use a specific swing
ratio, as opposed to other factors such as dynamic variation on a note-to-note level,
variation of the swing percentage over the course of a phrase and of a performance,
and other factors?
4: Is the ‘extract groove’ function a feasible method for recreating the swing of one
performance in another piece of music, and can this lead us towards insights around
how we might refine our approach to using swing and groove in electronic
composition?

These questions relate to the two general goals of this study: to learn more about
how swing really functions in order to better inform our practice as musicians and
teachers, and to explore new avenues for incorporating swing and groove into
electronic composition. The first three research questions are relevant to the first
goal and all four are relevant to the second goal (with the fourth having a particular
importance).

Methodology

While a major aim of this study was to explore the nature and function of systematic
deviations in timing and dynamics in general, I chose to examine one specific style in
particular: straight ahead jazz, as exemplified by the bebop and post-bop traditions.
Focusing on one genre allowed me to pay close attention to the small details of
timing and dynamic deviations which may have been lost in the noise if I had looked
at a wider variety of music. Straight ahead jazz was an appropriate choice to study
since swing and timing are recognised to be essential features of this music, and
 14

focusing on this area also has the advantage that there is already a significant body
of research on jazz to draw on to guide my own study.

Through examining how swing and groove function in jazz, I hope to draw wider
conclusions about systematic discrepancies in timing and dynamics in general, as
well as about the potential for incorporating these concepts into electronic music
composition.

The evaluation of concepts such as groove and swing often relies on highly
subjective judgments, but the technological means now exist to examine these ideas
in closer detail and refine our understanding of how they function. By using audio-
MIDI conversion to look closely at aspects of timing and dynamics and how
systematic deviations function, we can gain a more empirically-grounded
understanding of how swing and groove really work and how these different
phenomena relate to each other.

Some of the existing research on this topic looks at historical canonical recordings
(Collier & Collier, 1994; Ellis, 1991; Friberg & Sundström, 2002), while some other
studies make new recordings of live musicians (Butterfield, 2010; Busse, 2002).
These two approaches each have their own strengths and weaknesses. The second
approach has the advantage of allowing for much more precise control over tempo,
etc., and the performances could be recorded so that a single instrument can be
isolated and measured accurately in a way which could not be done with a
commercial recording of a jazz ensemble. On the other hand, it can easily be argued
that playing in an experimental situation where performers are being recorded in
isolation in an artificial environment where they know their playing is being measured
and analysed could potentially cause them to alter the way that they play,
consciously or unconsciously, making the results less representative.

Studying recordings which are recognised to be canonical, by historical players who

helped to define the style, is also inevitably going to carry a greater persuasive
weight when drawing conclusions about swing in jazz in general than using new
recordings by less established players, regardless of their professionalism or ability.
 15

The most obvious downside of using historical recordings is the difficulty of exactly
measuring note onsets of specific instruments in whole-band recordings. Friberg &
Sundström (1997) get around this problem by focusing specifically on the ride
cymbal, which is relatively easy to isolate in the frequency spectrum. Collier & Collier
(2002) take a different approach, choosing to look at two Louis Armstrong solos
which are played in ‘stop time’ – where the band plays only on the first beat of every
bar or of every second bar, meaning that the trumpet is mostly playing on its own.

For my research, I decided that the advantages of using historical recordings

outweighed the disadvantages. The way I got around the problem of isolating note
onsets of a single instrument from an ensemble recording was by avoiding whole
band recordings altogether – instead, I chose to focus on solo piano recordings. This
is a genre which has a relatively large body of recordings to draw on, and in addition
to the fact that there’s no need to try and isolate the piano from other instruments it
also has the advantage that it is relatively easy to identify the exact placements of
note onsets in piano music, the piano being a percussive instrument with a clear
initial attack. This is true whether examining audio waveforms or using audio-to-MIDI
conversion software (which was the method I used).

The choice of which recordings to select to study was inevitably somewhat arbitrary,
but in order to come up with a representative sample, I made the decision to include
a variety of performers from different periods and with slightly different styles within
the genre of straight ahead jazz – defined very narrowly for these purposes as 4/4
swing with a walking bassline. The exclusion of other meters and time feels meant
that the number of variables would be kept to a minimum and the extracts would be
more comparable (the focus on 4/4 swing is shared by most other previous research
on this question in jazz).

The choice of suitable material for study was narrowed slightly by the consideration
that older, poorer quality recordings did not work as reliably with the MIDI-conversion
software. For this reason, I used a Thelonious Monk recording from relatively late in
his career (1964), instead of an earlier recording. The most recent recording is from
Brad Mehldau, recorded in 2004, with the other two extracts coming from recordings
by Bill Evans and Hank Jones.
 16

I also chose to select a range of slightly different tempos, which had both
advantages and disadvantages. On the positive side, this would allow us to look at
how swing functions in general, instead of how it functions at a specific tempo. It
would also open up the possibility of suggesting some possible hypotheses around
the relationship between swing and tempo, by comparing extracts at different
tempos.

The main disadvantage of having a range of different tempos is that it brings up the
difficulty of deciding to what extent differences between extracts are down to tempo
as opposed to being explained by to differences in the personal styles of the
performers. In any case, this difficulty is practically impossible to avoid completely
when using historical recordings, since tempos will never match exactly. It seems
that the most feasible way of performing a study of this kind where tempo is really
kept constant would be to make new recordings of performers playing to a click
track.

I identified short extracts (around 30 seconds to 1 minute long) to focus on from each
solo, which I would analyse in relation to my first two research questions. Studying
representative extracts instead of whole performances allowed me to look more
closely at the details of the performance: since the general aim of this study was to
gain more insight into the small details of performances on a microscopic level, this
approach seemed to make the most sense. I identified the most suitable sections to
use as extracts by looking for passages which contained mostly quavers as opposed
to other rhythmic values (since this is the main level at which swing operates in jazz)
and which were generally rhythmically clear and typical of the style, without any
particular rhythmic idiosyncrasies or abnormalities.

After identifying suitable extracts, I converted each one to MIDI using Ableton Live.
Since I needed the MIDI clips to line up with Ableton’s metrical grid in order to
measure each swung quaver in relation to the adjacent on-beat notes, the first step
in this process was to align the grid exactly with the audio clips before I converted
them. I made each on-beat note line up with Ableton’s grid, which effectively meant
that Ableton’s tempo changed very slightly from beat to beat, making the grid align
 17

exactly with the audio data (which was inevitably not completely regular) without
changing the timing of the playback.

Next, I ran the audio-MIDI conversion software on each extract. This process
generally worked very well at identifying note onsets, however, it was sometimes
over-sensitive to the upper partials of some notes (particularly lower notes) and
identified these as separate notes, meaning the MIDI clips contained a few
superfluous high notes which were not present on the original recording. It was
relatively simple, however, to go through each clip and manually delete these extra
notes.

The audio-MIDI conversion software was unfortunately significantly less able to

measure the relative dynamic level of each note (or note velocity, as it’s known in
MIDI terms) than the note onset timing. The range of dynamics between notes was
noticeably smaller when listening to the MIDI clips than the original audio. More
exact measurement of this relationship would seem to require either to have access
to significantly more sophisticated audio-MIDI conversion software, or to record live
pianists playing on MIDI keyboards.

Once the extract had been converted to MIDI and lined up with the metrical grid, and
had any extra notes removed, it was then relatively easy to measure the placement
of each swung quaver in relation to the preceding and following on-beat notes. The
MIDI clips were transferred to Pro Tools in order to do this, since the more flexible
counter system in Pro Tools meant that this task could be accomplished much more
quickly and easily than in Ableton Live. The raw data obtained from each extract
using this process can be seen in Appendix 1. Transcriptions of the solo extracts
(with swing percentages of individual notes indicated by numbers) are provided in
Appendix 2.

This data was then used to calculate the mean swing percentage for each extract.
Graphs were produced showing the variability of swing percentage over the course
of the performance, and showing the correlation between tempo and swing
percentage, comparing the four performances.
 18

Moving on to research questions 3 and 4, I would then extract groove templates from
these same solo extracts. In order to extract a groove which would function properly
for my purposes, I had to have an extract which had note onsets on every quaver in
the bar. This would mean that the when the groove was applied to another clip,
every note would be swung, instead of having a mixture of swung and unswung
notes (where there are gaps in the extracted groove). To do this, I first tried to use all
the bars of each solo extract which had note onsets on every quaver in the bar. This
resulted in unnatural, awkward-sounding groove, so I then chose to delete bars
which seemed particularly atypical or incongruous with the rest of the extract, either
in terms of timing or volume (velocity). This was an improvement, but through trial
and error I found that the approach which generated the best-sounding results to my
judgment was to find a single bar which was fairly representative of the extract and
extract a groove from that one bar.

After going through these steps, I had an extracted groove template from each solo
extract which I could apply to any other MIDI clip. In order to test the usefulness of
these groove templates, I selected two representative jazz compositions from the
bebop and hard bop eras – Miles Davis’s ‘Donna Lee’ and John Coltrane’s ‘26-2’ - to
apply them to. These particular pieces were chosen for being representativeness of
the mainstream, straight ahead jazz style as well as for the fact that the melodies
consisted mostly of quavers, with few long, sustained notes or other metrical
subdivisions, which meant that it was easy to get an idea of the sound of different
kinds of swings within a short space of time, since the quaver is the level where
swing operates (in the extracts I studied).

Each extracted groove clip was generated at the same tempo as the original solo
from which the groove was extracted, since it’s reasonable to assume that a certain
set of timing and dynamic deviations will work best at the original tempo at which
they were played.

I now had four versions each of these two melodies, one for each of the solo extracts
which I used to extract groove templates. Because one of the focusses of this study
was to look at how swing and groove alter the way that music is perceived by the
listener, it was important that I could test out these altered extracts on listeners. To
 19

do this, I created an online survey where participants would listen to each of the
extracts and judge them based on their musicality.

While I was primarily trying to examine the effect of these manipulations on swing, it
seemed far too vague and subjective to ask participants whether an extract swings
or not, especially since respondents who are not jazz musicians may not even have
a clear idea themselves of what this means. Instead, participants were asked to rate
each clip based on how ‘musically convincing’ they found each extract, with an
introductory page explaining that for the purposes of this test, this “can be
understood to mean a performance that sounds like it was performed by a skilled
musician who's familiar with the style, as opposed to being computer-generated”.

It should be clear in light of the discussion in the previous sections on the

relationship between swing and human movement that ‘musically convincing’, using
the above definition, will largely overlap with what’s meant by swing. By phrasing the
question in this way, the test was made intelligible to a general audience, including
those who are not jazz musicians or are not familiar with the concept of swing.

Clips were presented in a different randomised order to each participant, in order to

avoid bias created through survey fatigue or through the question order itself.

In order to have something to compare the extracted groove versions to, they would
be mixed up with versions which were quantised to straight quavers (50%), triplet
swing (67%), quintuplet or 3:2 swing (60%) and sextuplet or 4:3 swing (57%). The
quantised clips were all generated at 177 bpm, the mean tempo of the four extracted
groove extracts, in order to make all the clips comparable by keeping them all within
the same tempo range as far as possible.

If the extracted groove templates were rated higher by listeners than the quantised,
uniform swing percentages, this would suggest that looking for new ways of using
variation in swing percentage and dynamics in electronic composition could be an
effective way of incorporating concepts such as swing and groove into electronic
music.
 20

Results and Discussion (recording analysis)

Relating to my first research question, I found that there was significant variation in
swing percentage within each of the solo extracts I studied. The level of variation is
quite high, and in the case of each of the four performances the swing level rises
above triplet swing (67%) at some points and is effectively straight at others (only in
‘Monk’s Point’ does it never fall as low as 50%, although 52% isn’t far off). These
variations tend to cluster together within a performance, meaning that if one
particular swung quaver happens to be late by a certain amount, there is a greater
likelihood that the next quaver will also be late, and vice versa. This phenomenon is
clear from Figure 1.

Most other studies have tended to ignore these variations, but the amount of
difference, the fact that they tend to cluster together, and their appearance in each of
the four pianists’ playing mean that they are unlikely to stem from random variation.
The patterns outlined by the graphs suggest that the swing level will effectively vary
during the course of a performance, with one phrase having a ‘harder’ swing which
then evens out for the next phrase, for example (or even on a smaller level, within
the course of a single phrase). Is it possible that this kind of variation is an essential
component of what makes a musical phrase (or a whole solo) sound like it swings?
Or more generally, is this an important part of what makes a performance sound
‘human’ as opposed to rigid and mechanically regular? If so, then this is a major
limitation of most of the previous studies which have been conducted on swing in
jazz, which have all more or less glossed over this kind of variation and have
generally worked with average swing percentages calculated from whole solos.

Some DAWs do offer the ability to introduce some controlled level of randomness
into MIDI data. In Ableton’s groove feature, for example, there is a ‘random’ control
which can be set at any level between 0% and 100%. While it is certainly plausible
that this could have the effect of making a MIDI clip sound less mechanical, there is
a big difference between this kind of variation and the kind that we find in real life
performances, which we have seen is not really random at all. This suggests that
there is a significant potential to refine the way that irregularities are introduced in
 21

DAW-based composition, making them less random and more like the kinds of
variation we have observed in the solos studied.

Figure 1 – Variation in swing percentage within extracts

Hank Jones - Kankee Shout

75

70

65

60
Swing %

55

50

45

40
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23
Bar number

Thelonious Monk - Monk's Point

85

80

75

70
Swing %

65

60

55

50

45

40
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Bar number
 22

Bill Evans - On A Clear Day

80

75

70

65
Swing %

60

55

50

45

40
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24
Title

Brad Mehldau - Monk's Dream

75

70

65

60
Swing %

55

50

45

40
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30
Bar number

Figure 2 shows the relationship between tempo and mean swing percentage in the
solo extracts studied. The low number of data points and the narrow range of tempos
make it difficult to draw any far-reaching conclusions from this, but the general trend,
such as it is, is consistent with that found by previous research, particularly Friberg &
Sundström’s 1997 study.
 23

Figure 2 – Tempo-swing relationship

62

61

60

59
Swing %

58

57

56

55
150 160 170 180 190 200 210 220
Tempo in BPM

Results and Discussion (listening test)

29 participants sent complete responses to the online survey. These consisted

mostly of musicians, with only three participants identifying themselves as non-
musicians. The musicians were roughly evenly split between those who considered
themselves jazz musicians and those who did not (10 jazz vs 16 not). Only three
participants stated that they were not familiar with jazz as listeners.

For the solo extracts, a mixed-design ANOVA (analysis of variance) was conducted
to compare the effect of manipulation (flat dynamics, quantised, and unaltered) as
the within-subjects factor and jazz musicianship as the between-subjects factor on
 24

ratings of musicality. The type of manipulation used had a statistically significant

effect on ratings of musicality (p = .03).

Post hoc comparisons using Bonferroni-corrected paired samples t-tests (alpha =

.0167) revealed a significant difference between mean subjective ratings for the
unaltered extracts (M = 3.59, SD = .74) and those with flattened dynamics (M = 3.30,
SD = .78). There was no significant difference between unaltered (M = 3.59, SD =
.74) and quantised (M = 3.62, SD = .90) extracts. There was no significant effect of
jazz musicianship on musicality ratings.

For the extracted groove data, a mixed-design ANOVA was conducted to compare
the effect of manipulation (quantisation levels and extracted grooves) as the within-
subjects factor and jazz musicianship as the between-subjects factor on ratings of
musicality. The type of manipulation used had a statistically significant effect on
ratings of musicality (p = .033). There was no significant effect of jazz musicianship
on musicality ratings.

Post hoc comparisons using Bonferroni-corrected paired samples t-tests (alpha =

.0125) revealed a significant difference between mean ratings for the 50% (M = 1.55,
SD = .85) and 57% (M = 2.57, SD = 1.07) quantisations and between the 57% (M =
2.57, SD = 1.07) and 67% (M = 2.14, SD = 1.18) quantisations. There were no
significant differences between the other conditions.

The finding that extracts with flat dynamics were rated lower than the unaltered
extracts (Figure 3) supports my hypothesis that reducing variation in dynamics of
individual notes would reduce perceived musicality. This preference was expressed
both by jazz musicians and non-jazz musicians.

The extracts with quantised swing ratios, on the other hand, were not consistently
rated lower that the unaltered extracts, failing to support my hypothesis that reducing
the variability of swing percentage would reduce the perceived musicality of the
extracts. In fact, the average rating for all of the quantised extracts was actually
slightly higher than for the unaltered extracts, although this difference was not
statistically significant. Looking at the results for each solo (Figure 5), the quantised
 25

versions were rated lower than the original for one solo, higher than the originals for
the other two, and equal to the original in the last solo (while the extracts with
flattened dynamics were clearly the lowest-rated for each solo).

A possible explanation for this finding is that some small timing errors were
introduced in some of the extracts during the audio-MIDI conversion process and
that the positive effect of the correction of these errors by quantisation outweighed
any negative effects of flattening out the variation in swing percentage. This is
consistent with the fact that the preference for the quantised versions was only
expressed for two out of the four extracts (perhaps the two extracts in which more
small errors were produced in the conversion process).
 26

Figure 4 – Mean ratings of unaltered, quantised and dynamically flat

extracts
 27

For the second half of the test (relating to research question 4), quantised versions
at different swing percentages of two jazz compositions (Donna Lee and 26-2) were
compared with versions which had ‘extracted grooves’ from the solo extracts applied
to them, meaning that each clip was subject to a different form of rhythmic
manipulation (or in the case of the extracted grooves, rhythmic and dynamic
manipulation).

Since four different quantised versions were used for each piece at different swing
percentages (50%, 57%, 60% and 67%), we can make some initial observations
about swing percentage based on how the quantised versions were rated compared
to each other for these pieces and at this particular tempo (177 bpm). There were
 28

statistically significant differences between the mean ratings for 50% and 57%
quantisations and between 57% and 67%. The difference between the ratings for
57% and 60% was not statistically significant, however (see Figures 6 and 7).

Figure 6 – Mean ratings for each quantisation level

 29

Moving on to how the extracted grooves performed compared to the quantised swing
percentages, the extracted grooves were rated higher (M = 2.45) than the quantised
versions (M = 2.16) on average. Perhaps the more meaningful comparison, though,
would be between each extracted groove and the highest-rated quantised swing
percentage. The results of these comparisons are more mixed, with the higher-rated
of the extracted grooves being rated around the same level as the quantised 57%
version (see figures 8, 9 and 10).
30
 31

The fact that the extracted groove versions were in general rated around the same
level as the highest-rated quantised swing percentage suggests that this approach
may be worth exploring further, but since they failed to consistently outperform the
57% quantisation, it’s clear that some further refinement would be needed for
extracted grooves to be really effective in this way. In future research, this might
involve separating out dynamic from timing irregularities in the extracted grooves to
determine the effects of these aspects individually.

It’s also possible that some timing and dynamic irregularities may be connected to
melodic considerations and other contextual factors in a way which renders them
ineffective when transferred from one performance to another. However, since the
extracted grooves were rated around the same level as the best quantised swing
percentage, with some rated higher, this at least provides some limited evidence that
 32

introducing systematic irregularities in this way may have the potential to have a
positive impact on perceived musicality.

Summary and Conclusion

The goal of this project was to gain a more nuanced understanding of how
systematic irregularities function in music and how they relate to ideas such as swing
and groove. In my review of the research literature and my interviews with
experienced musicians and educators (Barak Schmool and Martin Speake), my
conviction was strengthened that swing is something far more complex and hard to
pin down than simply a particular ratio of uneven quavers. It’s clear that aspects
such as variation in dynamics between notes (or accent patterns) and variation in the
swing percentage itself over the course of a musical phrase are also essential parts
of what constitutes swing (perhaps as well as other less easily definable factors).

My examination of extracts from four piano solos using audio-MIDI conversion

software showed significant variation in swing percentage over the course of the
extracts, with the variation clustered in a way which clearly suggested that it served a
musical purpose and was not random.

The online test generated some mixed results, showing that reducing dynamic
variation caused the extracts to be perceived as significantly less musical, while
failing to show a similar result for the extracts where variability in swing percentage
was eliminated. From one perspective, this can be seen as a reason to pay more
attention to dynamics as opposed to timing when we think about swing. Perhaps the
most likely explanation for this finding, though, was the limited nature of the audio-
MIDI conversion software and its tendency to generate some small rhythmic
inaccuracies. In future research, this problem might be overcome by making
recordings of live pianists playing to click tracks on MIDI keyboards (despite the
limitations of this approach as outlined in the methodology section).

The extracted groove section of the online test provided some evidence that groove
models extracted from real performances have the potential to be a more effective
 33

way of making electronic music swing than applying flat swing percentages, as well
as more generally supporting the idea that variation in dynamics and swing
percentage are important parts of what constitutes swing. The failure of the extracted
groove models to consistently outperform the highest-rated uniform swing
percentage, though, shows that further refinement will be needed before this is can
ever be a really effective tool in electronic composition.

Perhaps one of the more important conclusions to take from this project is that
concepts such as swing and groove are much more complex and nuanced than is
often assumed. While it might not be wise to claim that we’ll never be able to teach a
computer how to swing convincingly, it’s clear at least that our understanding of the
various factors involved has a long way to develop before we get to that point, and
that attempts to make computer-generated music swing by applying a flat swing
percentage to every pair of quavers will inevitably fail to really capture the essence of
what musicians mean by ‘swing’.

Regardless of whether the goal is to explore new possibilities in electronic

composition, or to gain a greater understanding of how swing functions in order to
better inform the way that we practice, perform and teach as musicians, it’s clear that
there is much more to be learned in this area, and that our ideas about how swing
interacts with microtiming and microdynamic irregularities will continue to develop in
the future as more sophisticated methods of analysis become available.
 34

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 38

Appendix 1 – Swing percentage values for individual notes in each solo extract

The table has columns for each of the four beats of each bar, with the number
referring to the swing percentage of the second quaver of that beat. If the second
quaver of the bar occurred exactly halfway through the beat the number in that cell
would be 50. The blank spaces in the table correspond to beats where there is no
quaver onset on the second half of that beat.
 39

Appendix 2 – Annotated transcriptions

(numbers indicate swing percentage of individual notes)
40
41
42
43