Syncopation

In music, syncopation is the stressing of a normally unstressed beat in a bar or the failure to sound a tone on an accented beat.

Syncopation is used on occasion in many musical styles, including classical music, but it is fundamental in such styles as ragtime and jazz. In the form of a back beat, syncopation is used in virtually all contemporary popular music.

Transformation

Richard Middleton (1990, p.212-13) 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:

• Latin equivalent of simple 4/4:

• Backbeat transformation of simple 4/4:

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

"Satisfaction" backbeat and before-the-beat transformations

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Middleton, Richard (1990/2002). Studying Popular Music. Philadelphia: Open University Press. ISBN 0-335-15275-9.
• van der Merwe, Peter (1989), Origins of the Popular Style: The Antecedents of Twentieth-Century Popular Music, Clarendon Press, Oxford, ISBN 0193161214

Further reading

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

External links

• Syncopation in Music and Dance by Philip Seyer
• On syncopation (Dutch)

See also

• Syncopation (dance)
• Progressive Steps to Syncopation for the modern drummer