Thinking Downbeats and Upbeats in Patterns

In music, and in this case west coast swing music, the first beat of measure is the downbeat. It is also considered as the first beat of rhythm (most of the time ;-). In measured music, the downbea...

Cut the Volume to Keep Time

There are some songs that really challenge your ability to keep the beat. Lyrical songs that have vocals but no other instruments, pop songs that hit to silence for more than a couple of beats—if...

Straight vs. Rolling Counts

In west coast swing, there are three common ways to count music: straight count, rolling count, and swung count. This post will discuss straight vs. rolling counts; a follow-up post will take up th...