Portals
A-Z
Categories
Random
Bezhin Meadow
Chess
Mid-October 2007 tornado outbreak
Familial hypercholesterolemia
George P. Burdell
Nature (journal)
John E. Sanders
Rhee Taekwon-Do
SummerSlam (1993)
Peak oil
edit page
history/authors
discussion

Syncopation




 This article may be too technical for a general audience.
Please help improve this article by providing more context and better explanations of technical details to make it more accessible, without removing technical details.
For other uses of the same name, see Syncopation (disambiguation).

In music, syncopation includes a variety of rhythms which are in some way unexpected in that they deviate from the strict succession of regularly spaced strong and weak beats in a meter (pulse (music)). These include a stress on a normally unstressed beat, or a missing (unplayed) beat (a rest), where one would normally be stressed. Syncopation is used in many musical styles, if not all, and is fundamental in such styles as funk, reggae, ragtime, rap, jump blues, jazz and often in dubstep, progressive metal, and classical music. In the form of a back beat, syncopation is used in virtually all contemporary popular music.

Contents

[edit] Types of syncopation

Technically, "syncopation occurs when a temporary displacement of the regular metrical accent occurs, causing the emphasis to shift from a strong accent to a weak accent."[1] "Syncopation is," however, "very simply, a deliberate disruption of the two- or three-beat stress pattern, most often by stressing an off-beat, or a note that is not on the beat."[2]

[edit] Missed-beat syncopation

Syncopation itself may look as simple as follows[2]:

Image:Syncopation simple.png

This is an example of the missed beat type of syncopation, in which a rest (silence) is substituted for an expected note (van der Merwe 1989, pp. 321). This can occur on any beat in a measure. "The natural stress of the meter has been disrupted -- ONE-two-(three)-FOUR, which is weird, because we want to keep hearing that nonexistent quarter note that would carry the downbeat in the middle of the measure."[2]

Though syncopation may be highly complex, dense or complex looking rhythms are often contain no syncopation. The rhythm, though dense, stresses the regular downbeats, 1 & 4 (in 6/8)[2]:

Image:Not syncopation example.png

[edit] Even-note syncopation

In meters with even numbers of beats (2/4, 4/4, etc.), the stress normally falls on the odd-numbered beats. If the even-numbered beats are stressed instead, the rhythm is syncopated. However, the former implies duple meter (1212) while the latter implies quadruple(1234).

[edit] Off-beat syncopation

The stress can shift by less than a whole beat so it falls on an off-beat, as in the following example where the stress in the first bar is shifted back by an eighth note (or quaver):

Image:Syncopation example.svg

Whereas the notes are expected to fall on the beat:

Image:Unsyncopated off beat exam.png

playing a note ever-so-slightly before, or after (directly below), a beat is another form of syncopation because this produces an unexpected accent:

Image:Off beat example other way.png

[edit] Anticipated bass

Anticipated bass is a bass tone that comes syncopated shortly before the downbeat, which is used in Son montuno Cuban dance music. Timing can vary, but it usually comes less than an eighth note before the first and third beats in 4/4 time.

[edit] Transformation

Richard Middleton [3] suggests adding the concept of transformation to Narmour's (1980, p.147-53) prosodic rules which create rhythmic successions in order to explain or generate syncopations. "The syncopated pattern is heard 'with reference to', 'in light of', as a remapping of, its partner." He gives examples of various types of syncopation. First however, one may listen to the audio example of stress on the strong beats, where expected:

Unsyncopated example Image:Unsyncopated example.ogg

Unsyncopated example with stresses on the beats.
Problems listening to the file? See media help.

[edit] Latin equivalent of simple 4/4

This unsyncopated rhythm is shown in the first measure directly below:

Latin transformation

The third measure depicts the syncopated rhythm in the following audio example in which the first and fourth beat are provided as expected, but the accent unexpected lands in between the second and third beats:

Latin transformation Image:Syncopation example latin transformation.ogg

Syncopated example demonstrating a "latin transformation" or displacement of the stressed beats.
Problems listening to the file? See media help.

[edit] Backbeat transformation of simple 4/4

Backbeat transformation

[edit] "Satisfaction" example

  • Before-the-beat phrasing, combined with backbeat transformation of a simple repeated trochee, which gives the phraseology of "Satisfaction":

"Satisfaction" backbeat syncopation is good and before-the-beat transformations

Rhythmic transformations producing "Satisfaction" Image:Satisfaction transformations.ogg

Rhythmic transformations producing "Satisfaction".
Problems listening to the file? See media help.

[edit] See also

[edit] Bibliography

  • Seyer, Philip, Allan B. Novick and Paul Harmon (1997). What Makes Music Work. Forest Hill Music. ISBN 0-9651344-0-7.

[edit] Sources

  1. ^ Reed, Ted (1997). Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the Modern Drummer, p.33. ISBN 0882847953.
  2. ^ a b c d Day, Holly and Pilhofer, Michael (2007). Music Theory For Dummies, p.58. ISBN 0764578383.
  3. ^ Middleton (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music, p.212-13. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0-335-15275-9.
  • van der Merwe, Peter (1989), written at Oxford, Origins of the Popular Style: The Antecedents of Twentieth-Century Popular Music, Clarendon Press, 128, ISBN 0193161214

[edit] External links

Retrieved from "http://www.knowledgehunter.info/wiki/Syncopation"
Copyright © 2009. Knowledgehunter.
Other Links:
Wissen im Web
Shopping 0nline
Dictionary of Meaning