Nearly a year after graduating from B2B, I decided to revisited some of the modules and lessons. It’s very interesting how much differently I look at the lessons, and also how much easier it is for me to play the songs.
I’m more than slightly amused at Module 10, lessons 4&5. Only someone with @JoshFossgreen 's unique sense of humor would think to have a lesson entitled “Some Kind of Wonderful”, and then follow it with “Dazed and Confused”.
Are you finding that there’s stuff in there you missed the first time around @PamPurrs?
I’m up to module 9 second time around and there are odd bits and pieces I’ve either forgotten or didn’t take in initially.
I go back to stuff I know I need to work on sometimes. I still have trouble with one of the fast octaves lessons (the one with the walking-up chromatic thing) at full speed, kind of klutz it up to this day when I move back to the E string
I’m finding things that weren’t 100% clear to me the first time, that now make a load of sense or raise questions in my mind.
For instance; in Some Kind of Wonderful, @JoshFossgreen refers to it as “Shuffle Feel”. I didn’t really pay that much attention to that term the first time I went through the course, but now that I’ve studied a lot of music theory, I recognize it as “Swing Feel”. I even checked out the score, and sure enough it denotes the tempo as Swing 8ths"
I know how to play “Swing feel”, but I thought “Shuffle Feel” was a bit different. Can @JoshFossgreen or @Gio or anyone give a good, concise, lucid explanation of the difference between Swing and Shuffle? I know they’re both played on triplets, and if there is a difference, its only a very subtle one. Is it an interchangeable term?
That’s actually a more accurate way of describing what I am finding too @PamPurrs.
It’s well worth looking back through the course. I’m also finding it to be quite a confidence builder as I’m realising I have come some way along my learning path. It’s certainly fueled a need to learn more too.
My “gut feeling” says the difference is where you put the emphasis - downbeats or upbeats. In shuffle feel there is more focus on the downbeats, while in swing feel there is more focus on the upbeats. Maybe a bit like a (military) march and rock, which share a straight eight feel, but march is heavy on the 1 and 3, while rock is accentuating the 2 and 4 more…
But, I am curious about what the real experts have to say
Good question. “Swing 8ths” and “Shuffle 8ths” are synonymous, at least in my world.
But “swing feel” versus “shuffle feel” isn’t quite, because a shuffle is a specific type of groove in 4/4 that generally still have a blues/rock/pop style backbeat, a la Some Kind of Wonderful:
But a “swing feel” refers more commonly to a jazz tune with a walking bass line, like:
That’s my take anyway! Those phrases are more like colloquialisms than technical terms, so take that with a grain of salt.