The Basic Swing Groove Swing eighths Example 1. This chapter introduces two especially signficant rhythms-swing eighths and the backbeat-and discusses syncopation generally. Jazz has many characteristic uses of rhythm that define it as a genre. Syncopation occurs when the hierarchy of the meter is obscured.Backbeat, a syncopation created through accent on beats 2 and 4 of a quadruple meter, is common in jazz.Swing eighths are notated as regular straight eighths but performed unevenly, in a quasi-triplet rhythm where the first note is twice as long as the second.
