In 1931, Duke Ellington and Irving Mills even dedicated a song to the phenomenon of swing which they called “It Don’t Mean a Thing, If It Ain’t Got That Swing”. Yet, to this day, the question of what exactly makes a jazz performance swing has not really been clarified. A team recently carried out an empirical study into the role played by microtiming in this process – a topic that has hitherto been controversial among music experts and musicologists. Experts refer to tiny deviations from a precise rhythm as “microtiming deviations”. The project team has now clarified the controversy about the role of microtiming deviations for the swing feel by digital jazz piano recordings with manipulated microtiming that were rated by 160 professional and amateur musicians with respect to the swing feel.
Click here for original story, Swing feel in jazz music: The role of temporal fluctuations
Source: ScienceDaily