Swinging Notes
In styles such as Jazz, Blues and Gospel, eighth notes are often "swung". This means that the first eighth note in a group of two is twice as long as the first, having the time of the first two notes of an eighth note triplet. If the eighth notes in a piece of music are meant to be swung, you will often see the symbol 6 = z at the start of the piece.
The following example is another song in a minor key. Notice the mournful quality of the tonality. Read the notation and notice the same notes are used as in C major, but the melody keeps returning to (and ends with) a D note rather than a C note. This is because it is in the key of D minor. Minor keys are discussed in more detail in Lesson Ten. For now, just notice that the sound is different when the same notes are used around a different central point.
As indicated previously, the eighth notes in this song are swung. If you are not familiar with swinging notes and have trouble with them, please refer to either Progressive Beginner Harmonica or Progressive Beginner Blues Harmonica .
Here is another melody in the key of D minor using swung eighth notes.
Here is the same melody in the key of A minor. Changing the key of a piece of music is called transposing. This is explained in Lesson Seven .
