Stop 6 of 6
Ties, syncopation and sixteenth notes
Accenting the unexpected: off-beats, ties, sixteenths and triplets.
Loading…
Stop 6 of 6
Accenting the unexpected: off-beats, ties, sixteenths and triplets.
Up to now almost everything landed where your foot expected it. But the music that hooks people hardest —from Cuban son to funk, from reggae to pop— plays with exactly the opposite: strokes that arrive earlier than expected, accents between the beats, notes left hanging over the strong beat. That's syncopation. At this last stop before the milestone you learn to write it, count it and strum it, and you open the door to finer subdivisions: sixteenth notes and triplets.
Listen to these two bars. They have the same chords and the same number of strokes per bar… almost. In the second, one stroke arrives half a beat early and keeps ringing over beat 3:
All on the beat
Syncopated
The second has more "push": the music seems to lean forward. That feeling is : moving the weight from a strong beat to a weak part, usually by striking a note on an "&" and holding it over the next beat. The ear expects a stroke on 3; it doesn't come, because it already came early.
To write a note that starts on an "&" and lasts beyond the next beat we use ties. Look at the count in the previous example: "1 – 2 & – (3) & – 4". The 3 is in brackets because it isn't played: the tie has swallowed it.
Read this example slowly. The tie in the first bar crosses beat 3; the one in the second crosses the bar line: the chord is struck on the "&" of 4 and keeps ringing on beat 1 of the next bar.
That last device, striking the next bar's chord half a beat early, is one of the most common syncopations in pop and rock: the chord change "jumps the gun" and the song gains momentum.
Count every eighth out loud, "1 & 2 & 3 & 4 &", and mark the attacks with your hand. Wherever there's a tie, keep saying the number, but the hand doesn't hit (or makes a ghost strum). In time you'll stop saying it out loud, but the principle is the same as with a rest: the pulse doesn't stop just because nothing new sounds. In notation, the rule is to keep the middle of a 4/4 bar visible; that's why an eighth on the "&" of 2 lasting one beat is written tied rather than as a quarter note covering beat 3.
An is a stroke that lands exactly between two beats, on the "&", while the strong beat stays silent. Listen: the click marks the numbers and the chord sounds only on the "&"s.
It's hard at first: your body wants to land on the beat. The trick is to feel the beat in your foot (down on the number) and play while your foot is up. With the pendulum it comes naturally: the hand goes down without hitting on the number and comes up hitting on the "&".
Now that you know what syncopation is, look at the star pattern with fresh eyes: in ↓ · ↓↑ · ↑↓↑ the stroke on the "&" of 2 rings over beat 3, which is a ghost. From that principle you can build variations. All three keep the pendulum: down on the numbers, up on the "&"s.
| Pattern | What changes | Feel |
|---|---|---|
| ↓ · ↓↑ · ↑↓↑ | Beat 3 missing | Classic lilt |
| ↓ · ↓↑ · ↑ · ↑ | Beats 3 and 4 missing | Floating, all in the air |
| ↓ · · ↑ · ↑↓↑ | Beats 2 and 3 missing | Gentle funk push |
If each eighth is split in two again you get : four per beat. They're counted "1 e & a 2 e & a…". It's the of funk, modern pop and many fast strums.
The second bar shows the most common combinations: eighth + two sixteenths ("1 – & a") and two sixteenths + eighth ("1 e & –"). With sixteenths, the pendulum moves twice as fast: down on "1" and "&", up on "e" and "a". Keep the tempo low:
The second pattern —down, (ghost), down, up on every beat— has a galloping feel that's very handy for upbeat songs.
A beat can also be split into three equal parts: that's a , three eighths taking the place of two. It's written with a 3 over the group and counted "1 trip let, 2 trip let".
Compare the two bars: in the first, each beat splits in two; in the second, in three. The triplet sounds round and rolling, like the 6/8 of the previous stop, but tucked inside a simple meter.
Now imagine the triplet with the middle note silent: you're left with a long eighth and a short one, "looong-short". That's the idea behind and the shuffle: eighths written equal but played unequal. Listen to the same pattern straight and swung:
Straight
Swung
No need to master it now: swing and the shuffle are at the heart of the next stage, The Blues Highway.
Play the tie example on Am. Say every eighth out loud and keep your hand in pendulum motion: on each tied note, the hand passes without hitting. Then do it without the audio, with just the metronome.
Goal: Strum the three bars of ties without striking any tied note, counting out loud, at 72 BPM.
Play each variation for four bars over this backing and move on to the next without stopping your hand. Always accent the stroke that follows a ghost.
Goal: Play each pattern for 8 bars over the backing and move from one to the next without stopping, at 80 BPM.
Start with continuous sixteenths at 50 BPM. When the hand feels loose, switch to the gallop pattern and change chord every bar. Count "1 e & a" out loud.
Goal: One straight minute of the ↓ · ↓↑ sixteenth pattern on Em and C, without speeding up, at 60 BPM.
Practice blocks ticked: 0 · Self-assessments taken: 0