Syncopation and offbeats · Rhythm

Music gets interesting when accents don't always land where the ear expects them. Syncopation happens when a note starts on a weak part of the beat and carries over the next strong part. An offbeat note sounds on the weak part after a rest on the strong part. Both shift the accent and create drive.

1. Listen

First, everything on the beat. The low note falls on each beat:

Now the high note sounds on the "and", between the beats. That's the offbeat sound typical of reggae and ska:

2. See it

Count a bar of 4/4 in eighths. The bold cells are where you attack:

Pattern	1	and	2	and	3	and	4	and
On the beat	x		x		x		x
Offbeats		x		x		x		x
Syncopation	x			x	—		x

In the syncopation row, the note on the "and" of 2 is held (—) through beat 3: the strong beat isn't attacked, and that's what you feel as a push. In notation it's written with a tie or with a longer value that crosses the beat.

3. Try it

With the metronome on eighths at 80 bpm:

Strum a D only on the "ands", with upstrokes. Your hand still moves down on the beat without touching.
Play the syncopation pattern from the table: down on 1, up on the "and" of 2, let beat 3 ring, down on 4.

Metronome on eighths Rhythm & accompanimentAccent displacementAccent groups of notes that don't line up with the bar without losing the pulse.

4. How it's used

The anticipation is the most common syncopation in pop and rock: the next bar's chord arrives an eighth early, on the "and" of 4, and is tied over beat 1.
In funk, syncopated sixteenths and muted notes create the groove; where you don't play matters as much as where you do.
In Latin styles and bossa nova, the bass stays on the beat while the chords are syncopated on top.

The key to syncopating without getting lost is subdivision: if you feel every eighth, any off-beat note has an exact place.

5. Go deeper

Applied Anticipating the chord change

Play a progression from G to C, one bar each. First change on beat 1. Then push the C to the "and" of 4 in the previous bar and let it ring. Hear how the progression gains momentum.

Advanced Rhythmic displacement

Displacement takes a whole figure and shifts it by an eighth or a sixteenth against the bar. The notes don't change, but the accents land elsewhere and the phrase sounds new. A three-eighth group repeated across a 4/4 bar (3+3+2 grouping) is another kind of structural syncopation, common in rock and Latin music.

Practise with sixteenths

Loading…

2. See it

Count a bar of 4/4 in eighths. The bold cells are where you attack:

Pattern	1	and	2	and	3	and	4	and
On the beat	x		x		x		x
Offbeats		x		x		x		x
Syncopation	x			x	—		x

3. Try it

With the metronome on eighths at 80 bpm:

Strum a D only on the "ands", with upstrokes. Your hand still moves down on the beat without touching.

Play the syncopation pattern from the table: down on 1, up on the "and" of 2, let beat 3 ring, down on 4.

Metronome on eighths

Rhythm & accompanimentAccent displacementAccent groups of notes that don't line up with the bar without losing the pulse.

4. How it's used

The anticipation is the most common syncopation in pop and rock: the next bar's chord arrives an eighth early, on the "and" of 4, and is tied over beat 1.

In funk, syncopated sixteenths and muted notes create the groove; where you don't play matters as much as where you do.

In Latin styles and bossa nova, the bass stays on the beat while the chords are syncopated on top.

The key to syncopating without getting lost is subdivision: if you feel every eighth, any off-beat note has an exact place.

5. Go deeper

Applied Anticipating the chord change

Play a progression from G to C, one bar each. First change on beat 1. Then push the C to the "and" of 4 in the previous bar and let it ring. Hear how the progression gains momentum.

Advanced Rhythmic displacement

Practise with sixteenths

1. Listen

2. See it

3. Try it

4. How it's used

5. Go deeper

Related concepts

1. Listen

2. See it

3. Try it

4. How it's used

5. Go deeper