3 ms·

I don’t know if this is wha you mean, but when listening to music, the human brain is constantly making predictions about what will happen next. Jerry Coker exp

I don’t know if this is wha you mean, but when listening to music, the human brain is constantly making predictions about what will happen next. Jerry Coker explains that the quality of the experience lies in the balance between the familiarity of being right and the surprise of being wrong. Thus, when listening to syncopation, you constantly comparing what your brain hears to a steady 4/4 it ‘expects' to hear. And when listening to a soloist improvise, you are comparing the notes your brain hears to the melody it ‘expects’ to hear. This is obviously not the only effect, not by a long shot, but is that what you mean by “inertia?"

agumonkey 10y ago
I've heard this idea too. The inertia is the physical incarnation of the predicted motion. I'm talking about playing the music, not only listening, it makes a difference. Talking about syncopation in terms of overall time signature is only partially valid. You can syncopate by altering an accent place while still on the same time. Think a dead note on drum or bass. It totally alters the feeling. My understanding is that A B C D isn't interpreted the same as A b c D, because there's a variation of energy between these for notes. It's implied in most music. For instance Rock is 4/4, Funk is 4/4 but it's not rock.. where's the difference ? implied change in energy (Rock is almost linear, a smooth wave; funk is superficially linear, close inspection reveals very weak and short changes). Same for jazz, to swing a beat you can't just play at the right time; it has to be the right momentum. Otherwise it will be flat aka no swing. It's hard to describe, the best I could find was in physics, momentum and internal system energy. The inertia is in your wrist and stick, it's always flowing back and forth between cymbals and your fingers. The change of perception of the listener comes from the player understanding of this. There's a lot of "feels" that you cannot represent without that. But these aren't studied formally, funk, latin, caribean music. Jazz is but I think the people studying jazz don't explain everything because they're talking among themselves and already have internalized all this. So they just write "swing this" above a measure and the cats will deal with it. oh: and I just thought of something else. The idea of prediction; since I relate everything to physics, often feels similar to a sense of internal balance. I mean your body position, as in not tripping. Syncopated music often feels like falling. Maybe it's synesthesia but considering that all these music were linked to parties and dance I think it's not far fetched that our musical prediction is the same as the one that tries to predict how to balance movements and body.
- aczerepinski 10y ago
  All this stuff can be precisely measured and explained (and has been - there are a million drum instructional videos that get academic about how to play various styles). Swing feel isn't a closely guarded secret among jazz musicians - it just isn't quick to explain. There's a sliding scale of the ratio between the first and second eighth note, where at slow tempos it's 2:1, and at fast tempos it's 1:1. The exact ratio at a given tempo is something that's passed down aurally. There's also a harder articulation on the second eighth note. There are other nuances too, but those are the most important ones.
  - agumonkey 10y ago
    Ha well, I didn't see them all, I did see quite a few and it was never explained at all. At best a few slowed down classical swing patterns. But it was all imitation and no deeper meaning. The 1,2 ratio is nice, but I use to see response curves... a bit like interpolated splines...

agumonkey 10y ago

I've heard this idea too. The inertia is the physical incarnation of the predicted motion. I'm talking about playing the music, not only listening, it makes a difference. Talking about syncopation in terms of overall time signature is only partially valid. You can syncopate by altering an accent place while still on the same time. Think a dead note on drum or bass. It totally alters the feeling. My understanding is that A B C D isn't interpreted the same as A b c D, because there's a variation of energy between these for notes. It's implied in most music. For instance Rock is 4/4, Funk is 4/4 but it's not rock.. where's the difference ? implied change in energy (Rock is almost linear, a smooth wave; funk is superficially linear, close inspection reveals very weak and short changes). Same for jazz, to swing a beat you can't just play at the right time; it has to be the right momentum. Otherwise it will be flat aka no swing. It's hard to describe, the best I could find was in physics, momentum and internal system energy. The inertia is in your wrist and stick, it's always flowing back and forth between cymbals and your fingers. The change of perception of the listener comes from the player understanding of this. There's a lot of "feels" that you cannot represent without that. But these aren't studied formally, funk, latin, caribean music. Jazz is but I think the people studying jazz don't explain everything because they're talking among themselves and already have internalized all this. So they just write "swing this" above a measure and the cats will deal with it. oh: and I just thought of something else. The idea of prediction; since I relate everything to physics, often feels similar to a sense of internal balance. I mean your body position, as in not tripping. Syncopated music often feels like falling. Maybe it's synesthesia but considering that all these music were linked to parties and dance I think it's not far fetched that our musical prediction is the same as the one that tries to predict how to balance movements and body.

aczerepinski 10y ago
All this stuff can be precisely measured and explained (and has been - there are a million drum instructional videos that get academic about how to play various styles). Swing feel isn't a closely guarded secret among jazz musicians - it just isn't quick to explain. There's a sliding scale of the ratio between the first and second eighth note, where at slow tempos it's 2:1, and at fast tempos it's 1:1. The exact ratio at a given tempo is something that's passed down aurally. There's also a harder articulation on the second eighth note. There are other nuances too, but those are the most important ones.
- agumonkey 10y ago
  Ha well, I didn't see them all, I did see quite a few and it was never explained at all. At best a few slowed down classical swing patterns. But it was all imitation and no deeper meaning. The 1,2 ratio is nice, but I use to see response curves... a bit like interpolated splines...