Came to My Rescue – Swing 8ths

I have written before about how to play swing 16ths. This morning I’ll talk a bit about swing 8ths and share an example. This isn’t just for music nerds, it’s good practice for anyone who plays an instrument to learn how to play different grooves, and a good example of how a different vibe can give a worship song a totally new expression.  My daughter plays ukulele and sings (please stream her album, it’s so fun).  Her natural style is to play swing 8th notes, in many of the songs she writes.  She also interprets standard worship tunes with this vibe which is really cool.  So for the Hillsong classic “Came to My Rescue”( which is almost defined by how straight the eighth notes are), you can see in the video below how different it is when you swing the eighth notes.  (For the record, she learned the original groove and was willing to play it that way but I loved her interpretation, just to give it a new feel–faster tempo and with swing 8ths instead of straight 8ths).  Here is the original.  Her version is below.

(For another example of swing 8ths vs. straight 8ths here is her version of “O Come to the Altar” and here is the original.)

Also I’ll just add that “Came to My Rescue” is such an awesome song that has stood the test of time so well.  So it was one of the songs the teens chose to sing for their teen-led service a couple weeks ago (along with two of my songs–I felt honored).

Give it a try, playing different songs with different grooves!  As a worship tune songwriter myself, I’ll say I love hearing new interpretations of my songs!  There’s no one “right way” to play/sing them!

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