Livestream | Tips to Make Jazz and Swing Sheet Music Good (Dark Eyes, Swing 39)

🎶 Today’s Livestream: Articulation, Swing Feel, Ornaments, and Rhythmic Variation for Jazz Accordion 🎶

Hi everyone! My name is Dallas Vietty, and I’m an accordion performer and educator specializing in helping players bring the deep, expressive sound of jazz, swing, and gypsy jazz styles onto the accordion. My mission is to help you move beyond just playing the right notes — and start sounding like the music you love!

Today’s livestream is all about getting that authentic jazz and swing feel into your playing — especially when you’re starting from written sheet music or a lead sheet. I’ll show you specific tools and techniques you can use to embellish and interpret a melody in a way that makes it come alive.

Here’s what we’ll dig into:

• Articulations:

  We’ll look at how to use detachment — playing with very little legato — to give your lines clarity and bounce. In swing and jazz playing, it’s common that the last note of a busier line gets shortened, giving the phrase a sense of lift and motion. I’ll demonstrate what this sounds like and how you can work it into your playing naturally, even when reading standard sheet music.

• Swing Feel:

  Getting the right swing feel is essential to sounding authentic. We’ll break down the classic long-short pattern that characterizes swing eighth notes. I’ll show you how thinking in triplets is a powerful guide for internalizing that feel, and we’ll practice applying swing phrasing to melodies you already know — even ones that weren’t originally written to swing!

• Ornaments:

  We’ll explore half-step grace notes and half-step eighth notes — two easy-to-learn embellishments that instantly add flavor, character, and that unmistakable jazz phrasing to your melodies. These ornaments help bridge notes and add expressiveness, giving a much more “spoken” and conversational quality to your playing.

• Rhythmic Variation:

  Finally, we’ll look at ways to tastefully vary the rhythm of a melody — not by changing it wildly, but by using anticipations (jumping ahead of the beat) or delays (leaning back just a touch) to create a more personal and swinging interpretation. This is especially useful when you’re working from a lead sheet or standard jazz tune. I’ll also talk about when not to overdo it — because sometimes the original jazz melodies are already perfectly crafted!