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This creates incredible tension, and the next thing you play is either going to increase the tension, or youll find yourself back on a new one. Or I might play a figure thats seven beats long, starting, say, on the end of beat four. If I start my phrase there, its like constructing one sentence off another before the first sentence is completed. It then becomes a thing of syncopations based on other syncopations.įor example, I like to start an idea on a sixteenth-note triplet on beat four. Thinking in these long lengths, you automatically start to develop rhythmic ideas that have a way of interconnecting. Doing that, you begin to notice certain ways the two rhythms synchronize over a long period of time.
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For instance, if the band is playing in 7/4 time, I might play in 4/4. The constant playing in odd meters with the Dead contributes to that. )Īs I develop ideas, they provide little pieces of furniture for me to say, Okay, I know I can use this broken mode where the first part is Lydian and the second part starts a half-step higher and continues as a double-diminished scale. These mechanical things sound good up to a point, but Im always interested in having little surpriseslike accenting all the offbeats for a bar. And you can of course apply 16th-note syncopation! (That's funk. This applies to all medium or fast tempos where 8ths are the smallest beat division.Īt slower tempos, however, you probably WILL be strumming or picking down on every 8th (up on 16ths between) so syncopating those 8ths will of course mean a downstroke, but it's still between the beats, with the following quarter note beat missed or de-emphasised. Keep the hand (and pick) moving down on the beat even when you're not hitting the beat this will keep your time regular. In general, don't be tempted to change your hand/arm movement to accent an 8th between the beat with a downstroke. It's crucial to keep feeling the quarter-note pulse - the effect of "down on the beat", even if those downs are not played. Whatever chord (or note) would have been on the next (missed) downstroke, play it on that upstroke before. Omit the downstroke following an accented upstroke ĥ. Add upstrokes without losing the beat (hopefully you're already OK with this!) Ĥ. Master your time-keeping (downstrokes solid on the beat) Ģ. Keith Richard is the master of rock chord syncopation (eg Brown Sugar, Start Me Up) Pete Townshend too.ġ. Every great rock riff (chords or single notes) is a mixture of on and off beats, the off beats representing syncopations. It's often said that syncopation belongs to jazz, and it is of course a fundamental element of jazz rhythm, but syncopation is crucial to rock too. Because it's on an 8th note between the beats, that means hitting it with an upstroke - and also missing the next downstroke (beat 1), to highlight the fact that the chord is displaced an 8th note early. IOW, instead of hitting it on beat 1, you hit it on the previous 8th note, or the "and of 4". Syncopation normally also involves bringing an anticipated chord (or note) forward, off the beat. The simplest technique to produce syncopation is to accent upstrokes (assuming you strum or pick with downstrokes on the beat ).