I want to swing a dotted eighth / sixteenth so that it sounds like a triplet. I’ve tried “2:1 Swing 8ths (fixed)” – and several others, but that doesn’t quite feel right.
Unless I’m misunderstanding you, Ben, I don’t think you can do this with Dorico’s rhythmic feel features, because Dorico will only swing two notes of the same duration, with the exception of a quarter beat that consists of 8th-16th-16th, in which case it will still apply swing.
You can’t really notate swing, it’s all in the performance
Excellent. That explains why it’s not working. I’ll write it as tuplets!
Or notate as two eighths, then the rhythmic feel “2:1 swing 8ths” will play those notes back as if they were triplets.
1 Like
Baby, if you’re writing for jazz players or experienced legit players, write just eighths and the musicians will know what to do. To be safe, add “swing” somewhere in the style marking - “Medium Swing”, “Swing Ballad”, “12/8 Feel”.
1 Like
Exactly, players don’t expect swing to be notated - try notating Erroll Garners signature ‘behind the beat’ felling
Lucky I’m not writing for any sort of players, then!
1 Like
Is it still the case that a dotted-8th / 16th pattern can’t be encoded for swing playback? It’s a pretty common situation, particularly in the older musicals for which I’m preparing critical editions, that a “shuffle” rhythm persists for many measures (dotted-8th bass note in LH followed by 16th chord in RH). Admittedly I need it only for my own proofreading, so it isn’t very high priority on that count.
Say, where could I get a curious glimpse of these editions?
Not yet. One might appear next year.
1 Like