Originally Posted By: Cathie
Originally Posted By: muzikluver
Hi Cathie, thanks for your suggestion, but I'm not familiar with swing 4/4. Would that be the same as a 6/4 time signature? It's hard for me to picture six quarter notes in a measure with a 4/4 time signature.


Hi muzikluver, I'm sorry I didn't get back here sooner. No, I didn't mean 6/4--personally, I find 6/4 pretty awkward so I avoid it. What I meant was to use quarter note triplets in 4/4 because it gives the effect of going faster without changing the tempo. What you're essentially doing is dividing two quarter notes into eighth note triplets (123 123) and then tying those eighth notes so that you can count them 12-31-23. You've just played quarter note triplets. It feels flowing (like a waltz), but it's highly syncopated because the rest of the band is still playing ordinary quarter notes--and since you've just played six quarter notes in the space you formerly allotted to four, you've sped your melody up by about a third.

I went looking for an example for you but it's awfully late and I'm brain-dead. Really hope this link works. You can see the melody switches back and forth from quarter note triplets to ordinary quarter and eighth notes. It's not quite what I meant when I said the sections switch back and forth, since this is bars switching back and forth, but it's the best I could find.

Begin the Beguine

I wish you all the best on your song. It's going to be lovely however you choose to arrange it.

Thanks for following up with me, Cathie, and for answering my question. I visited the URL you shared but it didn't help me grasp your suggestion to use triplets for my bridge instead of a tempo change. So, I did some searching for examples of 4/4 swing and triplets but couldn't find any other examples that helped either. I eventually decided to see if MuseScore had the ability to create triplets and discovered that it does, which compelled me to modify the bridge in my lead sheet by replacing the 3/4 measures with 4/4 triplets. After some experimentation, I realized that 4/4 triplets at 100 bpm is equivalent to 3/4 at 150 bpm. This enabled me to create two new demos of my song with triplets in the bridge using BiaB and MuseScore. One of these demos has triplets on the vocals only, and the other demo has triplets on both the vocals and instruments. I'm not sure if you had the latter in mind with your suggestion, but I tend to prefer it over the former because vocal triplets alone don't enhance the lyrics nearly as much as vocal and instrument triplets combined do. The drawback with having triplets on the instruments as well as on the vocals is that the effect it produces is the same as abruptly changing the tempo from 100 bpm to 150 bpm, which doesn't lend itself well to a gradual transition that would be pleasing to the ear. However, to my ears, this abrupt change to 150 bpm per your triplet suggestion is quite acceptable if not preferable to the gradual transition from 100 bpm to 120 bpm in my Demo #5 version. Of course, I'll have to see what my producer thinks of it because I trust his judgment and will want to discuss both of these options with him at length before making a final decision. Until then, please check out these two new demos and let me know what you think of them and also which one (if any) you prefer. Thanks again for your suggestion!

https://youtu.be/QeHWYLTDh-s (triplets on vocals only)

https://youtu.be/4qNwQhcABwY (triplets on vocals and instruments)

Tom Levan (pronounced La-VAN)
BiaB 2024 Win UltraPAK Build 1109, Xtra Style PAKs 1-11, RB 2024, Windows 10 Pro 64-bit, Intel Q9650 3 GHz, 16 GB RAM, 500 GB SSD & 2 TB HDD, Tracktion 6 & 7 (freebies), Cakewalk, Audacity, MuseScore 2.1 & 3.4, Synthesizer V