Does anyone know this piece? I found it a while ago and liked it very much. Only one problem.

It has written "Solid 4 beat". Now, I assume that this means NOT swing. But frankly, I find it sounds ten times better with a bit of swing, and when I tried playing it in strict 4/4 time, it was very difficult indeed!

Which takes me to another, rather strange problem. Does anyone else find that when they've been playing something with a swing beat, it's quite difficult to revert to normal time? A few years ago I even found myself playing some Mozart like this. Of course, he may be turning in his grave, but secretly, I bet he's jealous.

Steve

I know the piece, and I'm pretty sure it should be played straight rather than swung. I guess you could swing it - it would sound lighter if you did. What do you do with the semi-quavers? The riff in bar 10 that's in semi-quavers then repeated in quavers in bars 14 and 18, and in other places in the piece would, imo, lose it's effectiveness if it was swung.

I know the problem you refer to of finding it difficult to switch between playing swing and straight. We do quite a lot of exercises playing the same tune in different styles - swing, bossa, reggae, backbeat etc sometimes switching for just one section of the tune. It's a good exercise - when you've finished the swing version suddenly seems really easy!