Stop 5 of 5
The syncopated groove
Displaced accents, anticipations and feeling the pocket.
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Stop 5 of 5
Displaced accents, anticipations and feeling the pocket.
You can already keep your hand moving in sixteenths without stopping. Now comes the most musical part of all: deciding where the important strokes land. An accent that arrives a little earlier than expected, a chord that jumps ahead of the bar line, a whole band breathing together a hair behind the beat. That's : not so much which notes you play as the exact place you put them.
Listen to two versions of the same progression, G, C, D, G. In the first, each chord arrives right on beat 1 and is strummed in quarter notes. In the second, each new chord arrives early: on the last eighth of the previous bar, tied across the bar line.
The notes are the same; the energy isn't. The second version pushes: the music seems eager to reach the next chord. This stop is about that push and how to control it.
Let's start without changing chords. A falls in an unexpected place in the bar. The most famous example, heard in styles all over the world, groups the eight eighth notes of a 4/4 bar as 3 + 3 + 2:
The accents fall on 1, on the "&" of 2 and on 4. If you play only the accented strokes and let each one ring until the next, you get this dotted quarter, dotted quarter, quarter rhythm:
Another way to displace accents is to repeat a group of three sixteenths inside a four-beat bar. Since 3 doesn't divide 16, the accent lands somewhere different each time: on 1, on the "a" of 1, on the "&" of 2, on the "e" of 3… It's like a wheel turning at a different speed from the bar.
A 4/4 bar divided into eighths has eight parts, which you can group regularly (2 + 2 + 2 + 2, the four beats) or irregularly (3 + 3 + 2). The irregular grouping creates a small conflict with the pulse: two accents land inside the bar where the ear doesn't expect them, and the last one resets everything before the next bar. That tension between what you hear and what you feel in your foot is the essence of syncopation. This grouping turns up in very different music, from rock to pop, Latin music and electronica, and it returns in the advanced technique stage when you work on polyrhythms.
An (or push) is a note or chord that arrives one subdivision earlier than expected and is tied over the following strong beat. You heard it in version 2: the next bar's chord sounds on the last "&" and is held, not played again on 1.
Here's an eighth-note anticipation, on a single chord so you can focus on the rhythm:
And here, funkier, in sixteenths: the push arrives on the "a" of 4.
You don't have to wait for the bar line to push. Beat 3, the other strong beat in 4/4, can be anticipated too: the hit arrives on the "a" of 2 and is held over 3. Many funk and pop grooves combine both pushes, one mid-bar and one at the end, and the result is a rhythm that always seems to lean forward.
Notice the logic of the notation: a short note tied to one that starts on the strong beat. Whenever you read a tie crossing a strong beat from an "&" or an "a", think: "here's a push".
Musicians talk about playing "in the ". It means their rhythm has settled into a steady, comfortable place relative to the beat, and the whole band shares that place. But that place isn't always the exact centre of the click. There are three basic feels:
| Placement | Feel | Where you often hear it |
|---|---|---|
| On top | urgent, energetic | punk, fast rock, some Latin styles |
| Dead centre | firm, neutral, precise | pop, electronic music, very square funk |
| Laid-back | relaxed, heavy, sensual | soul, R&B, hip hop, slow blues, reggae |
These differences are very small. At 90 BPM a sixteenth lasts about 167 milliseconds; the pocket moves within margins much smaller than that. It isn't about playing out of time, but about consistently sitting a tiny bit to one side of the click. Sometimes ahead and sometimes behind isn't a pocket: it's instability.
The pocket is trained by ear more than by thinking. A classic exercise: set the metronome to click only on beats 2 and 4 (like the snare) at a slow tempo, and strum quarter notes. First try to make your stroke cover the click until it disappears: you're dead centre. Then try to let the click sound an instant before your stroke, always by the same amount: you're laid-back. And the other way round to play on top. Record yourself and listen: what you're after is a distance that's always the same.
Set the metronome to 70 BPM and imagine its clicks are the snare on 2 and 4 (if your metronome allows it, let it click only on those beats). Strum a muted Em7 on all four beats.
Goal: Play quarter notes for a minute with the click on 2 and 4 so that the click disappears, at 70 BPM; then a minute slightly behind, consistently.
In a band, rhythm guitar isn't alone: the drums mark the pulse and the subdivision, and the bass ties rhythm and harmony together. Your part sounds best when it fits with them, not when it competes.
What they usually do
What you can do
Play this pattern over the backing: lots of air strokes, and hits in the places where the bass isn't.
Goal: Play the 3 + 3 + 2 rhythm for eight bars in a row while tapping all four beats with your foot, at 90 BPM.
Play version 2 from the first scene with the backing. Strum with constant motion and pass through the air on every beat 1 that follows a push. Count out loud for the first round.
Goal: Play the G, C, D, G progression with every change anticipated to the last eighth, without rushing the bar, four rounds at 80 BPM.
Use the pattern from the previous scene. First dead centre; then try it a hair laid-back, relaxed, without losing your placement.
Goal: Play the syncopated pattern over the backing for two minutes, locked with the bass and with a steady pulse, at 84 BPM.
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