That’s so kind! Thank you!!!!

I'm honored, Garrett! Thank you so much!

Wow, Ellis, that is so nice. Thank you!!!!

Fantastic! Thanks for watching, TS!

Many thanks, John!

Haha, thanks for the comment, Ken. Thanks for watching!

Thanks, Michael! I appreciate it!

Hmm, not sure I've got something for you on Donna Lee. Maybe you'd like this: kzfaq.info/get/bejne/hdGqd8SJzqy3l4E.html

Thank you so much, John! I think practicing wtih the metronome on 2 and 4 is a great idea!

Excellent! So long as it's not my wife having the octuplets, I love it! 😂

INdeed! happy new year to you!

Never heard of a jazz teacher who says not to use swing eighths. Are you sure it wasn't a tazz jeacher? Yes, the faster one plays the more even the notes tend to become; nevertheless swinging eighths is the norm, and even fast notes have syncopated accents.

@@sheilamacdougal4874 Because swing eighths aren't the result of simple triplet. Jazz is polyrhythmic. There's more to the feel than the eighth note triplet--there's the quarter note triplet, half note triplet, and a slew of other tuplets. Then there's the butter when you offset all those polyrhythms from their traditional starting point. Barry knew about this too--listen to him talk about conceptualizing ballads in 6:4 when he sings with his choir. Look up Mike Longo, and then look up the West African drum tradition ;) Shame that we can talk for ages about chords and scales, but rhythm is often marginalized as an after thought.

@@pickinstone Quarter note triplets or half note triplets: do you mean notes written as equally valued that should be played with a triplet feel? So what? That's just an extension of the eighth note swing method; it's not a denial that one should swing eighth notes (which is what the post I was commenting on appeared to say). Similarly for your comments about other rhythms, which are irrelevant to the point at issue. What is true is that many jazz musicians swing eighth notes without playing precisely tied triplet pair, single triplet, tied triplet pair, single triplet. The 'single triplet' is slightly longer than a triplet, the tied pair slightly shorter than a pair of triplets. Bird sometimes plays the eighth notes almost even, but still swings them beautifully with the accents.

@@sheilamacdougal4874 I mean that you feel the quarter note triplet and half note triplet pulse in your body as you play anything in your mind's eye--straight quarter notes, eighth notes, whole notes, etc. Many people get polyrhythm wrong. You're not practicing 3:2, 3:4, 5:4, 7:4 just to play those figures on the bandstand. The true reason behind practicing polyrhythm is so that it becomes so internalized, that you feel that poly pulse in your body as you play any figure. As Mike Longo used to say, jazztime is three-dimensional. Jazz time doesn't just live on the page--there's hidden layers of poly rhythm underneath the eighth note. That's the African thing that we often overlook in jazz pedagogy. Oscar Peterson had that pulse--so did Wes Montgomery, Bobby Timmons, Dexter Gordon, Cannonball Adderley... to name a few. Time is never dictated one dimensionally as straight or swung--as you play faster, you feel the 3:4 to feel the lilt instead of approximating it. That's why jazz is a hot mess when you try to notate it. Look at transcriptions of Charlie Parker playing at any tempo. Odd groupings, poly rhythms, 32nd notes--he didn't just go "I am gonna play a half note triplet line here." Those rhythms were actually part of the pulse--the rhythmic polymetric sandwich that resonated within the genius of Bird. As Levar Burton once said, "Don't take my word for it." I'm just a random KZfaq guy. Rather, do yourself a favor and look up Mike Longo (RIP). He was Dizzy Gillespie's pianist right before Diz died. There's a lot more to jazz feel than "straight" or "swung."

Thanks for the comment, Drunken Boat Captain! Eighths are like a fingerprint for jazz musicians and everyone plays them slightly differently. In some tempos and styles, the eighths are quite rhythmically straight. But, I believe most students need to get the feeling of swing first before trying to "swing straight eighths."

Thanks much, Chapin Jazz!

It's a bit more complicated than "always play legato," but i find that for most students, playing legato solves a lot of articulation problems.

@@JeremySiskind Interesting, I'll bear it in mind.

I haven't yet, but Aimee's one of the smartest people and best teachers out there!

Thanks much for watching, Mai!

Yeah, it is a capitalistic society out there...but hopefully in my world that just means "making things that people like." 🤷‍♂ Beyond that it's too depressing haha.

I think these high/low accented notes should sometimes be on the beat, sometimes off the beat. If the top note of a phrase is always on the beat, you probably have a problem with your bebop lines!

@@JeremySiskind Heheh, true. I don't think I have that problem but I'll look out for it, cheers.

My pleasure, Mai!

I don't mind! Thanks for asking!