EVen Feel is where each quarter note beat is subdivided by 2, yielding the 8th notes being even in duration. The "One-and-Two-and-Three-and-Four-and" thing.

SWing feel, while being written on the notation in the same way as the above, each quarter note beat is actually subdivided into THREE's -- but not to be confused with the EVen feel's Triplets.

When encountering two 8th notes tied together in SWing feel, they are played as the first note having a longer duration than the second note. "Dooo-bee, Dooo-bee, Dooo-bee, Dooo-bee" -- and in actuality would be an 8th note triplet figure with the first two notes tied together.

Inside Band in a Box, in the Notation Editor View, you can easily see this as the dotted vertical subdivision lines are Three when SW feel is invoked in the Options window, but there will be four vertical subdivision dotted lines per beat when EV feel is invoked. Try opening one of the Demo songs that has notation on the Melody track and switch it back and forth in Edit view. Try that with both EV and SW examples. Then be sure to watch the note highlighting as the song plays, as well. Doesn't matter if you are not a chart reader here, it is the Rhythm of the thing that counts, the way the beat is subdivided. (Also really helps to accent beats TWO and FOUR instead of one and three when counting along with a SWing feel song. This is the "backbeat" -- clapping on 2 and 4 as done in the African-American church, or the part that a snare drum might typically hit in many rock and pop styles.)

"It ain't whatcha do, its the way whatcha do it." -- This was a popular song back in the Swing era, actually a song about the above differences. Also the song I goto when teaching swing to the youngsters still today, simply because once the kids hear it, they GET it.

Jimmy Lunceford's Lesson in Swing


--Mac

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