Charleston Rhythm

Introduction


Today let me introduce you to some useful rhythmic figure called the Charleston rhythm. It is derived from 1920s. Pay more attention to rhythmic properties of this.  Below you can see the rhythmic properties of this gesture.






This figure is comprised of two parts. The first occurring on beat one. And the second, on the off beat, at the end of beat two. Notice that here we anticipate the second part by half a beat. So it's dotted quarter to eighth note pattern. This figure is very useful for developing various comping patterns. So the Charleston rhythm starts on beat one and the second part of the figure is off beat which occurs at the end of the second beat. If you are playing this in both hands normally your right hand anticipates a downbeat on beat three. That is pretty much natural to me as a Pianist. That brings kind of a Swing feeling to this. Also notice that Charleston rhythm uses Swing, like other Jazz rhythms.

Listen to me playing Charleston rhythm over F Blues using rootless left hand voicings here.

Exercise

Play 12 bars of Blues in any key using Charleston rhythm. You may walk a bassline in your left hand to tie them together.

Conclusion

Well, today we played Blues in a kind of a Jazz vein. If you are lucky enough, you may have an upright bass walking a bass line while you play Charleston rhythm over the Blues form by your Piano. We covered lot of ground about Charleston rhythm today. That does it for this session. I’ll see you next time.

References



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