In my series of posts about different musical instruments, I have, over time, managed to cover most of the most common instruments that feature in Western music – those instruments that your children are most likely to be learning to play, or to come across in some way during their time in education at least. So rather than either go back over those instruments I have already written about, or write about less common instruments (which is something I may well do in future years), I thought I would now use my Facts About… series of posts to talk about the most common ensembles that your children will listen to, see perform, or maybe play or sing in. Again, my focus is on ensembles that feature in Western traditions, and it may well be that in the future I look at musical instruments and ensembles from other musical traditions, but for now I will stick with what I know. You can read my other blog posts in this series on ensembles by clicking on the links below:
Facts About The String Quartet
What is a Swing Band, Who Performs In It and What Music Do They Play?
- A swing band is an ensemble with somewhere between 12 and 25 musicians playing together.
- The swing band is made up from musicians from the following families of musical instruments:
- The Brass Family
- The Woodwind (Reeds) Family
- The Percussion Family
- The String Family
- A swing band’s make up can vary, but will often have musicians playing the following instruments:
- 3-4 trumpets
- 2-4 trombones
- 2 alto saxophones
- 2 tenor saxophones
- Baritone saxophone
- Clarinet
- Piano
- Guitar
- Drums
- (Double) bass
- In terms of where the players will sit in the swing band, they will be sat with the rhythm section (piano, drums, guitar and (double) bass) on the left hand side as you are looking at them and the brass and reeds sections on the right. The brass and reeds will usually be arranged in rows, with saxophones in the front row, trombones behind them, and trumpets at the back. If the band has a conductor then they will stand at the front, but a swing band will not necessarily have a conductor for whom that is their only role in the ensemble. This is similar to the way that very small ensembles, like string quartets don’t have a conductor, they learn to watch each other and take their queues from each other.
History of the Swing Band
- In the 1930s a style of music called swing was developed, and the swing band, as the title suggests, developed to play this new style of music.
- So, shall we start with a very quick explanation of what swing music is? Swing music is one genre (or type) of jazz. Swing music is known for its use of syncopated rhythms, where music is played emphasising the off-beat. When you first learn to play music, your teachers will spend a lot of time getting you to learn to feel the beat, they may play marching games, to get you to learn to feel a 2/4 rhythm, or get you waltzing around the room to learn how to feel the beat in 3/4 time. but in swing music, you play off the beat, making the music have a very distinct rhythmic feel to it.
- Swing Band music will often have some improvisation in it (musicians in the band will play a solo during the piece and the music for this solo will not be written down, but made up by that soloist, often as they play).
- The Swing Band grew from Big Band music. Some people will talk about Swing Band and Big Band interchangeably, but there are differences in the two styles of music, with Big Band often being much larger than Swing Bands, as the name would suggest. And Big Bands play swing music in addition to other forms of music, where Swing Bands stick to swing music. I will write separately about Big Bands, so look out for that post if you want to learn more.
- In the early 1930s, big bands in American clubs started to play this new style of jazz music which had this very distinctive rhythm to it. Big Band music had been around for a while, and musicians like Duke Ellington with his band, started playing arrangements of music which had more complicated rhythm patterns, making music that was suited to people dancing to it.
- Swing music was gaining in popularity in dance clubs. It started to be played on the radio more and more often. And in 1935 the musician Benny Goodman played a concert at the Palomar Ballroom in Los Angeles, California, bringing swing music to a much wider audience, making it more respectable for everyone to listen to, not just those people who went to the dance clubs – the 1920s and early 1930s were a period of prohibition in America, where the sale of alcohol was forbidden and people going to places like dance clubs would have been very much looked down on. So the places were jazz music and indeed swing music developed would have been thought of very badly as places of ill repute.
- It is also worth remembering that in the 1930s in America, black and white people lived separately with very different rights. Black people were discriminated against and not allowed to go into the same venues, or even sit in the same part of a bus as white people. Swing music, developed by black musicians would have been considered as unacceptable for white people to listen to or play.
- But with more people listening to swing music, and enjoying it, white musicians started playing swing music as well as and alongside black musicians. And white people started to watch swing bands play, bands made up of both black and white musicians playing together.
- Swing music absolutely did not end racial discrimination or segregation, but it was a something that helped to bring people together, experiencing and enjoying the same music, finding common ground, and musicians pushing to be able to play music they loved with other talented musicians who played and loved the same music regardless of their race.
- The invention of the radio meant that music from one part of the world could be broadcast potentially all over the world. It was in the same period as swing band music was gaining in popularity, that ownership of radios in people’s homes increased hugely. And listeners on one side of the country could listen to music being performed right across the other side of the country, or even from one side of the world to the other. Swing music from America could be heard all over the world.
- At the end of the 1930s and into the 1940s the Second World War was raging across Europe. Many swing musicians and their bands were at the height of their fame, and swing music itself was also at the height of its popularity.
- There is research showing that swing music in particular positively affected the morale of troops fighting in the Second World War with GI’s favourite songs helping to remind them of their love of their country while they were far from home. There were even military jazz bands who were sent all over the world to play for troops abroad to lift their spirits. Glenn Miller was one band leader who travelled to perform for troops in England, and they performed at least 800 morale boosting shows before Miller’s plane sadly disappeared while flying over the English Channel and he was declared Missing In Action.
- Swing music during the war were not necessarily songs about the war explicitly, but more love songs or songs of home, “Boogie Boogie Bugle Boy”. or “I’ll Be Home For Christmas” for example.
- Dances such as the Lindy Hop, the Charleston and the Jitterbug came out of the Swing Band era.
- Swing Bands and their music may not be as popular as they were in the 1930s and 40s, but they are very much still around. A google search will find you any number of swing bands in your country, or area depending on where you live. With nostalgia for the Second World War and the “blitz spirit” that many people have, there are often Swing Band concerts, or Second World War inspired events that musicians play swing classics for. Swing Bands can even be hired to play at your wedding, if you wish and have the space and budget for it. Some schools have their own Swing Bands. It is an enduring art form, that is still popular today.
Swing Band World Records
- Admittedly this is more of a World Record relating to dance than the music specifically, but The Guiness World Record for the largest tea dance was obtained on 12 September 2010 when 306 couples danced in a Tea Dance in George Square, Glasgow, Scotland. The band Swing Sensation Big Band accompanied this World Record Tea Dance.
- The Guiness World Record for the largest swing dance was obtained by Cowboy Country Swing Club from Laramie, Wyoming in the USA on 30 April 2015. The club had 1,184 members on this date.
- Finally, on 23 June 2018, 391 couples took part in a swing dance lesson at Bletchley Park in England giving them the Guiness World Record for the largest swing dance lesson.
Sources, especially for historical information
- https://www.ipl.org/essay/How-Did-Swing-Music-Affect-The-Civil-PCG45GFUYT
- https://www.britannica.com/list/timeline-of-the-american-civil-rights-movement
- https://www.britannica.com/art/swing-music
- https://digitalcommons.hope.edu/curcp_13/98/#:~:text=Names%20like%20Glenn%20Miller%20and,years%20of%20World%20War%20II.
- https://www.wwiimemorialfriends.org/blog/boogie-woogie-bugle-boy-music-in-world-war-ii
- https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/513449-largest-swing-dance-lesson
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