On Tuesday, March 4, 2003, at 02:35 PM, Mark D. Lew wrote:
At 10:18 AM 03/04/03, Darcy James Argue wrote:
Hmm... well, my first piece of advice would be, "Don't use this expression at all!" It's misleading, inaccurate, and unnecessary. Anyone who doesn't understand what the indication "Swing" means is unlikely to be helped much by the quarter-eighth triplet legend.
I disagree with that. I work frequently with amateurs who are mostly
literal-minded in the classical tradition (ie, volunteer choruses) and I
find that this is useful for many of them.
Realize that I'm talking about a world where the performers aren't going to
get it really right regardless and it's a question of the best ways to make
things a little better in the face of limited time and attention span.
(It's not that no one ever improves, but when they do they move on to a
better group.)
Even in an amateur situation -- *especially* in an amateur situation -- my experience is that the triplet indication just makes things worse. IMO, you would be better to tell them *not* to try to swing the eighth notes in an exaggerated manner. The only thing they should worry about are offbeat eighth notes that are either followed by a rest or tied to another note. Those notes (and no others!) should be delayed -- "laid back" -- and the amount of delay depends on the tempo. If they can manage to do that one thing reasonably consistently, everything else can be sung absolutely straight and the choir will sound 100% hipper than they would if they tried to adopt an artificial quarter-eighth triplet swing feel.
- Darcy
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