ASHLAND, Ore., Dec. 5 (UPI) -- A U.S. musical acoustician says the late musician Ray Charles was really good at snapping -- never more than 5 milliseconds off the beat.
Kenneth Lindsay of Southern Oregon University-Ashland says Charles's finger snaps that open "Fever" are timed nearly perfectly.
Lindsay studies the physics of the sound of swing music and in a talk last week at the Acoustical Society of America's joint meeting in Honolulu with the Acoustical Society of Japan he explained how he created a visual analysis of the bouncy, energetic, even lopsided musical style of swing.
Swing, he said, relies on drama and emotion and a micro-timing of pulses and meter that aren't found in other styles. Swing uses a lot of triplets, irregular notes that are 2/3 the length of a regular note.
Swing, said Lindsay, is found in American jazz, Caribbean beats, Brazilian swingee, reggae, samba and many other musical styles around the world.
