That Jazz - Monkey Max Music and File Download

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Part I: All That Jazz: A Tour of the Basics
Spending a few minutes on time signatures
Although you’re not going to learn to read music,
you should know about the notation called the
“time signature” that appears on every piece of
music. The most common time signatures are
2/4, 3/4, and 4/4. The top number tells you how
many beats per measure; the bottom tells you the
value of those beats. So, 2/4 means two quarter
notes per measure; 3/4 means three quarter
notes; and 4/4 indicates four quarter notes. Dave
Brubeck’s “Take Five” is notated with a 5/4 time
signature, with five quarter notes per measure.
Don’t worry too much about the idea of quarter
notes. In the most basic sense, 4/4 simply means
four beats per bar, while 5/4 means five per bar.
In this chapter, I discuss the basic rhythmic unit
of four beats per measure. However, jazz
comes in all sorts of unusual rhythmic groupings,
or time signatures. Composers such as
Dave Brubeck write music with groupings of 5
beats (“Take Five”), as well as 7, 9, and 11 beats
per measure. Brubeck’s “Blue Rondo a la Turk”
begins with nine beats per measure, with
different combinations within those nine beats,
then morphs into standard 4/4 time, or four
beats per measure. (I discuss Brubeck’s work
in detail in Chapters 7 and 8.)
As you can see through basic math, time signatures
with even numbers are symmetrical, while
odds are asymmetrical. As is true of design, or
human faces, asymmetry adds interest to jazz.
Songs with odd-number sequences like Dave
Brubeck’s “Take Five” requires more effort to
understand, but after you lock into the structure
and the patterns of improvisation, you may be
impressed with how musicians combine intellectual
and emotional elements in a song. When
Brubeck alternates four-beat sections with
nine-beat sections, it’s as if you were driving on
a flat desert highway and suddenly began
climbing a twisty mountain road. The change of
scenery is exciting. The more a composer uses
and combines time signatures other than 4/4,
the harder you have to work, but the experience
can be extremely satisfying in the long run.
Moving with the Music: Swing,
Syncopation, and Polyrhythms
Swing, syncopation, and polyrhythms are the powers that make jazz move.
Swing is a defining quality of jazz; it’s the music’s relentless forward momentum
in the form of loose, driving rhythms. Swing is the mysterious thing that
is essential in jazz and completely lacking in classical music.
Now add in syncopation and polyrhythms and you have the rhythmic ingredients
that give jazz its finger-popping, head-bobbing effect on listeners. Take a
look in this section at how these three qualities — swing, syncopation, and
polyrhythms — come together.