High Five and Swing Rhythm Notation
Found in: Curriculum, Jazz Clues, Reading
Sherrie A.
I have a question from Jazz Clues. For clue 4 with High Five the rhythms are written in 4 counts, but the song is 12/8 time. The best way to reconcile this is obviously divide groups of 3 eighth notes into 4 sets and it makes sense with the swing rhythm that the “and” is the last note of the set of 3 eighth notes. Would this be a correct interpretation? What makes it more confusing is that at the beginning of the training video it appears that Neil is switching to the second chord in the measure on count 3 of the rhythm diagram, which makes sense with my previous explanation. But later in the video when he’s having a student do it, he had her switch to the second chord of the measure only after completing the entire 4 counts of the rhythm diagram. My thought is this was just a mistake the second time and I would default to the initial way since it makes more sense with the actual timing of the piece. I just have a student who fully comprehends time signature and is trying to understand it perfectly with this rhythm diagram so I thought I’d check to see if there is a correct way. I fully understand the rhythm diagrams are a means to an end so the technicality is of less importance than the concept of dropping in, but thought I’d see how others approach this. Thank so much!
Mark M., New York
Correct interpretation. Yes. This is one of a handful of ways swing is typically notated. And it’s a good example of why the Curriculum defines time signature as “count to [top number] using [bottom number]” instead of the more traditional “[top number] beats in a measure” — we experience 12/8 as having 4 beats, not 12. Beat as a perception/experiential/felt phenomenon, not a purely simple mathematical one.
- 12/8 time signature
- 4/4 with a note at the top of the piece that two eighth notes = Swing
- 4/4 with sets of dotted-eighth-followed-by-sixteenth (this is technically a “hard swing,” which is legitimate, but it is most often not played strictly as written, rather it’s most often played the same as the other options here)
- 4/4 with eighth-note triplets (least likely because most cluttered)
Sherrie A.
Mark M. the beat as a perception makes sense. But the “count to” doesn’t connect when the top number is 12 and we are counting to 4. Hence the students confusion. But I like the idea of experiencing the beat over the mathematical counting.
Mark M., New York
Sherrie A. It’s not 12 and 4. It’s count to 12 using 8th notes. This is still time signature we’re talking about. The point is that the “beat” may or may not be directly connected to one of the numbers in the time signature, and 12/8 is an example of the 4 beats not being connected to the time signature numbers.
Laurie Richard, Nebraska
Hi Sherrie, the reason the examples you mentioned don’t change chords on the same beat is that Neil was playing the first few measures of the piece, which each contain 2 chords – the second being played on count 3. The later example was using measures 17-18, which each have only ONE chord, so it would last the entire 4 counts of the measure.
Original discussion started April 1, 2026