Hip-hop for swing feeling

svinohryak

Junior Member
Hello everyone
I've heard opinion that playing along with hip-hop music is one of the best way to develop swing feeling. Can you please advise what hip-hop bands and compositions are more appropriate for this porpose.
 
I hadn't heard that, or ever considered them related until now, but I suppose Hip-Hop is sort of a halftime swing. I don't know that practicing one would help with the other though. Treat them differently, and excel at both - just know when to use each!

Bermuda
 
Listen to "Swing" music would be my call, If you want to learn to really swing. Then take from it what you want and apply it how you wish. Learn from the masters.
 
Hip hop, like jazz and blues uses "swung" 8th notes as the base for their rhythms. So do many of the Baroque pieces.

That being said, if you want to learn swing, I don't think you would gain much from playing hip hop or baroque. Even if they could, they would just show you how the 8th note is treated in swing vs straight time. If you want to understand swing drums, then listen to some swing music.
 
Perhaps by "swing" the OP means a swing feel, not the genre. Any genre of music can be swung.

I have played along to old hip hop tracks a bunch in the past and it really improved my ability to swing my bass drum foot, which also migrated into my rock and funk playing bigtime. Oftentimes in hip hop the bass drum is the only thing swung while the snare and hi hat are straight. It's the swung bass drum that implies that the hats are swung even though they are in fact straight. Sort of the same as So What by Miles Davis- for a lot of the tune it's just straight quarter notes on the ride, but it swings like crazy.
 
Perhaps by "swing" the OP means a swing feel, not the genre. Any genre of music can be swung.

I have played along to old hip hop tracks a bunch in the past and it really improved my ability to swing my bass drum foot, which also migrated into my rock and funk playing bigtime. Oftentimes in hip hop the bass drum is the only thing swung while the snare and hi hat are straight. It's the swung bass drum that implies that the hats are swung even though they are in fact straight. Sort of the same as So What by Miles Davis- for a lot of the tune it's just straight quarter notes on the ride, but it swings like crazy.
I totally agree. Playing along to Hip Hop has helped me develop my foot work too. Swinging the bass pedal and getting those fast sixteenths there. It has all transposed into my country rock 2/4 beats, my shuffles, etc. Practicing to Hip Hop is great for developing a swing feel. I'd play songs like Poison, Funky Cold Medina, even some Cypress Hill songs.
 
Practicing to Hip Hop is great for developing a swing feel. I'd play songs like Poison, Funky Cold Medina, even some Cypress Hill songs.

Cypress is the only actual hip hop in that trio... Tone Loc & Bell Biv DeVoe??? That's R&B and "new jack swing" - way more pop then hiphop which actually has roots in dancehall reggae and dub, not blues and jazz but lets maybe skip the history lesson eh?

True hiphop doesn't really swing its way straight... especially the hats which are machine generated and don't move. Love to playing to that stuff because its so locked in its easy to tell when I've come off the clock. Easy to confuse "bounce" with swing... bounce is pocket.

Swing? That'd be more Booker T then Biggie Smalls. Play along to some MG's that shits moving all over the place!

Some essential hip hop

Nas - Illmatic
Dr Dre - Chronic
Public Enemy - Takes a Nation of Millions
Wu Tang Clan - 36 Chambers
Tribe Called Quest - Low End Theory

Check this - https://youtu.be/Wbq3axLwamE
 
Hello everyone
I've heard opinion that playing along with hip-hop music is one of the best way to develop swing feeling. Can you please advise what hip-hop bands and compositions are more appropriate for this porpose.

I don't know about songs, but there are a couple of YouTube videos where people explain hip hop drumming and it is very similar to cut time swing, as Bermuda said, with a backbeat on 3. I think playing it in 8/4 gives it nice danceable feel. Five six seven eight....
 
Hip Hop is almost always in 4/4, and it does have a pronounced swing.

Here's the description from Wikipedia:

"At its rhythmic core, hip hop swings. Instead of a straight 4/4 count (pop music; rock 'n' roll; etc.), hip hop is based on a triplet feel somewhat similar to the "swing" emphasis found in jazz beats. Hip hop takes this concept a step further, however. Whereas jazz swing implies three eighth notes (a triplet) per beat, hip hop implies six sixteenth notes (a "double triplet") per beat. Like the triplet emphasis in swing, hip hop's double triplet "bubble" is subtle, rarely written as it sounds (4/4 basic; the drummer adds the hip hop interpretation) and is often played in an almost "late" or laid back way."

I think the difference is that jazz and blues use one triplet per beat (3 8th notes), hip hop uses 2 16th note triplets per beat. I think the 16th notes come across as slightly more straight, which is why some were under the impression that hip hop is just straight 8s.

Although most hip hop is going to be in 4 (backbeat on 2 and 4). There are some newer examples of hip-hop using different time signatures (3/4, 7/4), as more experimental types of hip hop are coming out.
 
Hello everyone
I've heard opinion that playing along with hip-hop music is one of the best way to develop swing feeling. Can you please advise what hip-hop bands and compositions are more appropriate for this porpose.

It's a good way to develop a swing feeling when playing hiphop grooves. For a bop swing feel I would use mainly bop records. As you listen and play, you're learning more than just the feel-- you're learning the musical setting, and you're learning vocabulary, and how to use it appropriately. Playing along with a recording in a different style is not a terrible idea, but it shouldn't be the first thing you do.
 
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