3.

2 A Little Drag
Swing, latency and hierarchy in Michael Jackson’s The W ay You M ake M e Feel

The documentary This Is It (2009) includes footage of Michael Jackson rehearsing

his track The Way You Make Me Feel (Jackson 1987) in preparation for the final

performances of his career. The song is characterised by an offbeat keyboard stab, and

Jackson’s direction to the music director and keyboardist Michael Bearden concerning

the placement of this offbeat provides a remarkable insight into his attention to time-feel

and means of communicating it to his band. The language employed is a neat illustration

of the separation of swing and latency outlined in the SLW model.

Although there are many duple rhythms, the tune has a predominately shuffle

rhythm, and the introduction, the focus of this study, is at a slow tempo (!82bpm). For

these reasons it would be tempting to consider this offbeat to be a 3rd triplet quaver,

however for the purposes of this study it will describe it as a 2nd quaver with 66.6" %

swing. The distinction has little bearing on the substance of the analysis, but this choice

has been made to keep terminology consistent within the thesis and explanations as clear

as possible.

The editing of this rehearsal is possibly jumbled, it seems that the chronological

sequence of rehearsal events is in fact first a comment about feel (appearing 32:39-32:52

in the film, that will be called Extract A (CD1.23) here) followed by a rehearsal of the

tune’s introduction (appearing earlier in the film at 32:05 – 32:29) here referred to as

Extract B (CD1.25).

Extract A starts with Jackson, apparently dissatisfied with Bearden’s feel on the

keyboard part, instructing him to introduce a ‘little drag’ and play ‘a little more behind

the beat’, ‘like you’re dragging yourself out of bed’ – a particularly evocative description

of the experience of latency. Bearden is more concerned with his keyboard sound and

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Jackson is soon distracted by an incorrect chord change, but in the short time available

he demonstrates the desired placement three times (CD1.23). The placement of these

offbeats is calculated in relation to Jackson’s foot stamps and finger clicks which are

taken, with as much accuracy as possible in the limited conditions, as the master time-line

(Figure 3.2.1).

Figure 3.2.1 Jackson’s directed offbeat placements in Extract A with tempo and swing values
(CD1.23 and 1.24 plays Extract A, followed by aural testing of these values).

At a tempo of 89bpm there is approximately 6.7ms for each percentage point of

crotchet duration. So comparing the swing values to a baseline of the triplet quaver

discrepancies of 1.3" % (!9ms), 3.3" % (!22ms) and 5.3" % (!44ms) are found. The

perception of these deviations may be checked in CD1.25. At 89bpm, three repetitions

of the swing values of 68%, 71% and 73% are played sequentially (panned right) against

the baseline 66.6" % triplet quaver (panned left) while a click (panned centre) marks the

pulses. In the author’s experience the panning effect is barely noticeable at 69% but

clearly identifiable at 71% and above.

The deviation of offbeats in Extract A has so far been described in terms of

increased swing value. Taken in isolation, a 71% offbeat placement, with no adjacent

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onbeats (as in this ska type rhythm), may be considered to be heavily swung or straight

with high latency70 so context must dictate the best approach. In consideration of the

baseline shuffle framework in the tune’s accompaniment, and in reference to Jackson’s

‘dragging’ implication, a good case can be made that these deviations are latency

mechanisms acting on 66.6" %. The musical implications are identical of course, but the

consideration of this distinction is an instructive exercise in the full understanding of

swing and latency in other musical examples. For comparison, Extract A is rewritten in

terms of a 66.6" % swing with latency as the deviating force (Figure 3.2.2). The formulas

for deriving swing (S) and latency (L) for the first crotchet are included for completeness.

" % swing from Extract A. Jackson’s vocalized keyboard

Figure 3.2.2. Latency values, given 66.6
stabs are labeled (t1, t3, t5) whereas footstamps and finger clicks represent the master time-line

Taking this perspective of offbeat placements as latent triple-swung quavers, Extract

B (CD1.25) may be approached. This section, presumably occurring after Extract A, is a

rehearsal of the same section of music with Jackson, Bearden on keys and Jonathan

70 As well as corresponding values in between, see 2.12 p 127.

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Moffett on drums. The edit includes seven bars and 26 quavers so a much more useful

data set than in Extract A. An analysis is taken with Jackson’s foot stamps marking beats

1 and 3, and the drums indicating beat 2-4. Up-beat placement of the keys is determined

by the offset between these markers. Tempo, which is slightly loose (within a !3 bpm

range) is calculated, in all but one case, between the first beats of each bar. Figure 3.2.2

shows the quavers, with tempo fluctuations, offbeat placements and latency relative to a

66.6" % swing reference. All values are rounded to the nearest percentage, which is a fair

approximation given the perceptual limits and measurement ambiguities.

Figure 3.2.2. Latency transcription of Extract B, with all values rounded to the nearest percentage
(CD1.25).

For the first two and a half bars, the offbeat placement stays consistently around

the 69% mark, with a subtle 2% behind the beat feel. Jackson vocalizes this rhythm from

the third chord closely, aside from a quickly corrected anomaly in bar 2 beat 1. However,

Bearden stabs the third chord of bar 3 playfully, and remarkably, late (13% latency,

around 90ms), which causes Jackson to share a laugh with him, thereon the offbeat

placement settles in either side of the 73% offbeat placement mark (6% latency, around

40ms later than the triplet quaver). The musical context makes these stabs feel like late

swung quavers, rather than 4th semiquaver placements, even though the latter are closer

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from a standard notation perspective. From bar 4 Jackson seems content with the

dragged feel and sings the string-line over the accompaniment. CD1.26 is a 2-bar

sequence of the keyboard part played at 67%, 69%, 71%, 73% and then 75% offbeat

placement. The 70-73% range would appear to cover Jackson’s desired feel, a no-man’s

land (or obtusely written) area of standard notation, but a perceptual and effective

musical experience nonetheless.

The playfully late chord (bar 3, beat 3) seems to cause Moffett to drop back a little

tempo (2bpm). The analytical context is not adequately controlled, the discrepancy small

and the technological limitations far from ideal, so little should be read into the event.

However, if the drummer did in fact feel compelled to accommodate the significant

latency with a reduction in tempo, this would suggest that the governance of tempo is

not entirely his responsibility. Using the terminology of the SLW model (see Section 2.4,

p 100-5) this would imply that master timeline determination is not a monopoly but an

oligopoly: The latency of Bearden’s (implied) onbeat actually stretched the master time-

line, so Moffett did not accept total responsibility for its placement. In this example the

situation is tenuous, but the calculation may as well be completed: A 2% drop in tempo

was caused by a 13% latency, so for that bar, the hierarchical weighting of master time-

line determination would be calculated as Moffett: !85%, Bearden !15%.71

This case study highlights the potential value in the analysis of rehearsal footage (and

multitrack recordings) of particular artists. Research of this kind is a powerful tool in the

identification of the practitioner’s intention - and perception - of time-feel, and a valuable

contribution to our understanding of the mechanics of rhythmic expression.

71In may also be the case, that there is a non-linear response to latency fluctuations with, for example,
accommodation being made only above a specific threshold.

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