Jazz piano fundamentals: rhythm
Category: Miscellaneous
There is a world of piano styles out there to discover. Jazz piano is a great style of piano that is a lot of fun to play. There are many fundamental differences between jazz piano and classical piano styles. Below I summarize some of these differences in the rhythmic styles.
- Swing: swing rhythms are quite popular in jazz music. In swing rhythms, a series of eighth notes is played with the first eighth note having a slightly longer time value. The second note has a slightly shorter duration.
- Syncopation: Jazz rhythms use a lot of syncopation. Syncopation occurs when one accents a ‘normally’ weak beat. Another word for this style could be ‘off-beat’.
- Polyphony: In the post, “Musical Texture”, I discuss different types of musical texture including polyphony. Polyphony (also called counterpoint) occurs when more than one melody exists at the same time in a piece of music. This is very common in jazz music, often with several instruments improvising around different melodies.
Well, that’s just a taste of jazz! We’ll have to discuss it more later – it’s a really wonderful style of music!
Posted on March 19th, 2009 by sharlene
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