One of the major problems I have found with students as well as a number of professional musicians, including drummers, is the understanding of the jazz cymbal beat. In the many master classes I have done in the states as well as abroad, when I ask students as well as many professionals to sing the cymbal beat, invariably they will sing something like the following:
When I inform them that this has never been the cymbal beat used in jazz I am met with confused and disbelieving stares. This has been a misconception that has caused confusion and misconceptions in players for years. Hearing or thinking the cymbal beat in this manner will actually cause a player to play incorrectly. It is presently confusing many drummers especially.
A couple of years ago I was invited to Finland to rehears a band of students for a week and then have them perform a concert on the final day of the workshop for the public. I was asked to bring some of my own charts as well as some of Dizzy’s charts I have in my band library. One particular rehearsal they were trying to play the Benny Golson arrangement of “Whisper Not.” They could not find the “pocket” to save their lives. The drummer was way out in front of the horns and everything was out of sync. I asked the drummer to sing the cymbal beat to me and of course he sang it just as it appears above. I went down the line with several of the horn players asking them the same question and without exception they all sang the same thing. When I said to them, “It has never been this.” I was faced with stares of disbelief and confusion. I further explained to them that they have been hearing the cymbal beat all wrong and this was the reason they couldn’t find the pocket on “Whisper Not.,” “Hearing it this way will make you play incorrectly and has been at the root of many of your time and rhythm problems for years” I stated. I then explained the following:
“The older players, before Be Bop, were primarily timekeepers and they heard and played it this way.”
This is what it would look like in standard notation but since jazz is written in one language but in reality played in another here it is actually notated in 12/8 time as you would actually play it.
With the advent of Be Bop the cymbal beat changed to the following:
This enabled the drums to no longer be relegated to just keeping time but to a contrapuntally involved member of the melodic improvising.
Here it is notated in it’s 12/8 form:
If you apply this beat to your time keeping when practicing you will find yourself playing and hearing in a totally different manner if you have been thinking and hearing it as presented in the beginning of this article. In the case of the band in Finland, I explained this to the drummer but he didn’t quite get it at first. Then I realized that he did not have 3 against 4 in his time conception. I had him play the following before he began the Be Bop cymbal beat and he was immediately in a different pocket.
If you examine the above you will find that it is actually the half note triplet.
I had him continue to play and counted the horns in for “Whisper Not.” To their surprise they were immediately in sync and swinging it naturally. When they finished the tune they all started applauding me as they realized they had just learned an important lesson that would remain with them for the rest of their musical lives.
Another significance I would like to share with you is the recent trend to deem straight ahead jazz as “out of date.” I have a residency for my big band in New York at the John Birks Gillespie Auditorium, located in the NYC Baha’i Center. I play there about every 5 weeks. When I’m not playing there I book other jazz artists. These come from all genres including avant guard. On one occasion I booked a college aged group that was more rock oriented than jazz. During the break, I heard the young leader, who was hitting on the girl taking tickets, that his music was more contemporary because people are “tired of ting ting a ting.” I thought to myself, “This guy is putting something down that he doesn’t really understand and is in fact singing it backwards.” He seemed like a fool to me as his music was, frankly, boring. It is my contention that those musicians or fans that feel things like Be Bop are “out dated” are victims of this same misconception about the beat. That is, when they have attempted to play straight ahead, they have been playing to this corny version of the cymbal beat. I have students who are playing professionally , who, when exposed to the real beat were unable to keep up and sounded like amateurs. Every one of them down to the last, upon me asking them to sing the cymbal beat, sang it like it appears at the beginning of the article. This includes the drummers as well.
I would highly recommend that students listen to an album (CD) called “For Musicians Only” featuring Dizzy Gillespie, Stan Getz, Sonny Stitt, Ray Brown, Herb Ellis and Stan Levy. It was recorded in the 50s but still sounds contemporary today. Not only that, I doubt if you will find musicians today who are able to play jazz on the level that it is played on this recording. I promise you, you will be pleasantly surprised.
I would also recommend that you sing the cymbal beat that appears at the beginning of this article and then sing the others and you will notice an entirely different feeling between them. This can greatly affect your playing and should be an important consideration in your jazz concept.
I Sincerely hope this article has helped in alleviating this problem if you have been a victim of this misconception that is presently being perpetuated in educational as well as professional environments. Thanks for reading.
…Mike Longo
Great article, thank you
I’m a fan of your work and would like to understand your point here, but I’m having a couple of problems. First, if one looks at your triplet (or dotted quarter) – based examples, which as you say is how the cymbal beat is actually played, as opposed to the sixteenth-note-based notation example, it seems that the older concept differs from the bebop concept only by using “chow” versus “ching”, and that it starts on the first beat of the measure, instead of starting with the pickup on beat four. I’m aware of your view of how important timbre is to rhythm, so I suppose “chow” vs. “ching” creates a difference in feeling, but how specifically does it do this?
Also, what is it about the “chip a-ching” version which makes it so that the drummer is not only a timekeeper but a full contrapuntal member of the ensemble? That’s not clear.
Thanks for all the knowledge you share in your teaching work!
Another way of asking this would be: what is it that the majority of musicians sing for the cymbal beat, which you say is wrong? They aren’t interpreting the dotted eighth followed by sixteenth literally as written, you say, but rather, as a triplet based rhythm. Then what’s the difference between the incorrect and correct versions?
Great stuff, Mike! I love the half note triplet concept. Have been working on that. Double check your graphics on the 12/8 example of 3:4- I think the second note should be placed on the 5th eighth-note pulse of the measure, right?
Hi Mike, I hope you’re doing good.
That’s a great and very true article. I remember when Garzone talked about downbeat Swing which is exactly KA-chow 🙂 Looking at the examples I believe you need to move over the second 1/2 note triplet on the 3:4 for the drummer example to an 1/8th earlier.
Hugs
Uli