Syncopation
Moderator: Shoshanah Marohn
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Curt Trisko
- Posts: 913
- Joined: 12 Jan 2012 1:32 pm
- Location: St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
Syncopation
Being a beginner means playing a lot of repetition as part of practice. Repetition gets boring. Is there anything wrong with a learning technique in which I introduce slight syncopation fairly early on? I've pretty much always been doing this. At first, it was accidental. But sometimes you chance upon a "happy accident". For almost every beginner-level song I've learned, I changed it up enough to make it my own version. I'm not talking about jazz-style syncopation. I'm talking about slight syncopation that doesn't disrupt the song.
Yes and no. There's a LOT to be said for having rock solid timing. A friend of mine lost a job because he Couldn't nail straight time. Despite being a phenomenal musician (in the HoF, even). I'd say learn to do both.
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects
More amps than guitars, and not many effects
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Donny Hinson
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Eric Philippsen
- Posts: 1966
- Joined: 14 Jan 2008 5:38 pm
- Location: Central Indiana, USA
As Lane mentions, rock solid timing is beyond critical.
Most musicians think they have solid timing. The stark reality is that most musicians DON'T have solid timing and playing along with a metronome will confirm that for them. That could mean you. It certainly did for me.
After so many years of playing and gigging I thought I was "above" using a metronome. (Who? Me? I've got great timing!) That was until I pulled that little tic-toc box out of hiding one day and got a real awakening. Now I use it every single time I practice. A new lick to learn? I set that box to stupid-slow-speed and work up from there.
The proof for rock solid timing is in the pros' playing. THe next time you listen to, say, Buddy or Paul or (insert great's name here) listen first to their timing and second to the notes they play. Then go back and find that metronome you've stashed away somewhere.
Most musicians think they have solid timing. The stark reality is that most musicians DON'T have solid timing and playing along with a metronome will confirm that for them. That could mean you. It certainly did for me.
After so many years of playing and gigging I thought I was "above" using a metronome. (Who? Me? I've got great timing!) That was until I pulled that little tic-toc box out of hiding one day and got a real awakening. Now I use it every single time I practice. A new lick to learn? I set that box to stupid-slow-speed and work up from there.
The proof for rock solid timing is in the pros' playing. THe next time you listen to, say, Buddy or Paul or (insert great's name here) listen first to their timing and second to the notes they play. Then go back and find that metronome you've stashed away somewhere.
Go watch old youtubes of Earl or Sonny (steel guitar content: when they were teens, Sonny Osborne shared a room in a Nashville boarding house with Buddy Emmons). Just give it a listen. A good banjo player still drops my jaw.
Sonny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqrP0Le ... ata_player
Sonny: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tqrP0Le ... ata_player
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects
More amps than guitars, and not many effects
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Bill Duncan
- Posts: 1123
- Joined: 10 Jul 2008 1:53 pm
- Location: Lenoir, North Carolina, USA
Timing is everything!
I don't care how fancy and fast a "lick" is, if the timing is off, it just will not work. Also, even after learning a new lick it always takes time to get the timing right so I can use it in the right places.
Even the very same lick can be several different licks by merely varying the timing.
One last thought. I learned a lot of licks in the beginning, but it took years longer for my overall picking ability to reach a level where I could use them properly. I am still learning too. I plan to never stop.
I hope that makes sense!
I don't care how fancy and fast a "lick" is, if the timing is off, it just will not work. Also, even after learning a new lick it always takes time to get the timing right so I can use it in the right places.
Even the very same lick can be several different licks by merely varying the timing.
One last thought. I learned a lot of licks in the beginning, but it took years longer for my overall picking ability to reach a level where I could use them properly. I am still learning too. I plan to never stop.
I hope that makes sense!
You can observe a lot just by looking
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Richard Damron
- Posts: 1251
- Joined: 23 Jul 2007 2:51 pm
- Location: Gallatin, Tennessee, USA (deceased)
Curt -
In a small sense, you have panned "jazz-style syncopation". Don't do it. All syncopation is only a temporary deviation from the established tempo. Since jazzers seemingly play around with tempo more than others it would be well to note that the only means by which they are able to accomplish this is as a result of the development of an internal metronome which is spot-on the money regardless of tempo. They - and you, and me - can only achieve this "sense" of time by endless practice in which we attempt to ingrain perfect timing within our musical selves. Yes, the rhythm section provides an aid in this regard but, until one becomes truly proficient, listening to both the rhythm section and your own instrument is beyond most capabilities.
The only answer to your query is that which has already been posted by others: - Learn to play with the utmost accuracy as regards timing. Then, when the occasion arises, your inner metronome will allow you to syncopate with impunity. How good or bad that effort appears within the context of the tune is open to "personal preference". Sounding like a broken record, aren't I?
It should be noted that the tendency to practice ballads, say, at a given and fixed tempo may be good in the short term but, in the long term, is counterproductive. Changing the tempo - within reasonable limits - also assists in the development of that inner metronome.
Be accurate in your timing. You can always go nuts with it in the future - if that be your bent.
Richard
In a small sense, you have panned "jazz-style syncopation". Don't do it. All syncopation is only a temporary deviation from the established tempo. Since jazzers seemingly play around with tempo more than others it would be well to note that the only means by which they are able to accomplish this is as a result of the development of an internal metronome which is spot-on the money regardless of tempo. They - and you, and me - can only achieve this "sense" of time by endless practice in which we attempt to ingrain perfect timing within our musical selves. Yes, the rhythm section provides an aid in this regard but, until one becomes truly proficient, listening to both the rhythm section and your own instrument is beyond most capabilities.
The only answer to your query is that which has already been posted by others: - Learn to play with the utmost accuracy as regards timing. Then, when the occasion arises, your inner metronome will allow you to syncopate with impunity. How good or bad that effort appears within the context of the tune is open to "personal preference". Sounding like a broken record, aren't I?
It should be noted that the tendency to practice ballads, say, at a given and fixed tempo may be good in the short term but, in the long term, is counterproductive. Changing the tempo - within reasonable limits - also assists in the development of that inner metronome.
Be accurate in your timing. You can always go nuts with it in the future - if that be your bent.
Richard
Mr. Damron, that first paragraph was effin' brilliant.
If I wore hats, I'd tip it at you.
So, Mr. Trisko, the only thing "wrong" with playing with the timing/phrasing is shortchanging yourself.
LEARN it like the record/source, and you'll be able to play with the phrasing later.
If I wore hats, I'd tip it at you.
So, Mr. Trisko, the only thing "wrong" with playing with the timing/phrasing is shortchanging yourself.
LEARN it like the record/source, and you'll be able to play with the phrasing later.
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects
More amps than guitars, and not many effects
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Curt Trisko
- Posts: 913
- Joined: 12 Jan 2012 1:32 pm
- Location: St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
That's very good advice. I have a little digital metronome that I bought I while back but almost never use. Using it sucks a lot of the fun out of the instrument. On the other hand, when I play along to a song that I'm playing on my computer, it's very enjoyable. Really nailing the beat feels great when playing along to a recording. It just gets boring doing it repetitively by myself with just the steel.
I do think that the way that I'm learning is fundamentally flawed from an objective perspective, but I'm having fun with it and am improving at a rate that is satisfactory to me. For example, my palm blocking is coming along okay even though I've made little specific effort at it. Pedal steel for me is a hobby that I find relaxing and interesting.
When I've made a breakthrough with it, it's not because I'm focusing on any given technique, it's because I have a certain piece of music that I want to play and it just so happens that the "proper" technique is the most efficient way to play it. This way of learning is exactly how I imagine the pioneers of the instrument doing it.
I also think Richard is dead-right. He's right to sense that I'm panning jazz syncopation. I'm not a fan of it. To me, it's like abstract art. When you first look at it, it doesn't make any sense. In order to understand it, you have to understand how the artist reached that point. Artists like Picasso were technically very proficient, they just chose to change their artistic direction at a certain stage of artistic development.
Don't get me wrong, I know that the way I'm going about it isn't very good. I've been trying to find a group of musicians to do steady jam sessions with in order to have that outside pressure influence my learning. If I'm playing with other musicians, I doubt they'll have the tolerance for me wanting to do things my way. They'll want me to play it plain, simple, and accurate.
I do think that the way that I'm learning is fundamentally flawed from an objective perspective, but I'm having fun with it and am improving at a rate that is satisfactory to me. For example, my palm blocking is coming along okay even though I've made little specific effort at it. Pedal steel for me is a hobby that I find relaxing and interesting.
When I've made a breakthrough with it, it's not because I'm focusing on any given technique, it's because I have a certain piece of music that I want to play and it just so happens that the "proper" technique is the most efficient way to play it. This way of learning is exactly how I imagine the pioneers of the instrument doing it.
I also think Richard is dead-right. He's right to sense that I'm panning jazz syncopation. I'm not a fan of it. To me, it's like abstract art. When you first look at it, it doesn't make any sense. In order to understand it, you have to understand how the artist reached that point. Artists like Picasso were technically very proficient, they just chose to change their artistic direction at a certain stage of artistic development.
Don't get me wrong, I know that the way I'm going about it isn't very good. I've been trying to find a group of musicians to do steady jam sessions with in order to have that outside pressure influence my learning. If I'm playing with other musicians, I doubt they'll have the tolerance for me wanting to do things my way. They'll want me to play it plain, simple, and accurate.
As to your not liking jazz syncopation, that's cool.
IMO (and probably some others'), some syncopate because they have a very good grasp of timing, and play with it because it "sells" the point they're trying to make (Emmons, Turrentine, and Jimmy McGriff spring to mind, but all take a back seat to Frank).
Some do it because they think it's cool, or their heroes did it (no instrumentalists spring to mind, but most singers fit the bill: they phrase like Frank, but unless you think and feel like Frank, it's not helping).
Others do it because it's a part of their personality: they're not trying to make the song more effective, it's just their own personalities tell them that's how to play and/or sing (Willie, both singing and playing; Jerry Garcia on whatever he played-although he could play solid banjo; Ralph Mooney; Miles).
IMO (and probably some others'), some syncopate because they have a very good grasp of timing, and play with it because it "sells" the point they're trying to make (Emmons, Turrentine, and Jimmy McGriff spring to mind, but all take a back seat to Frank).
Some do it because they think it's cool, or their heroes did it (no instrumentalists spring to mind, but most singers fit the bill: they phrase like Frank, but unless you think and feel like Frank, it's not helping).
Others do it because it's a part of their personality: they're not trying to make the song more effective, it's just their own personalities tell them that's how to play and/or sing (Willie, both singing and playing; Jerry Garcia on whatever he played-although he could play solid banjo; Ralph Mooney; Miles).
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects
More amps than guitars, and not many effects
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Richard Damron
- Posts: 1251
- Joined: 23 Jul 2007 2:51 pm
- Location: Gallatin, Tennessee, USA (deceased)
Curt -
Almost as an aside, I would ask you to consider the following as added input to your quest.
Music - the meter, the timing, is highly structured. Unless one is perverse enough to change the time signature with each measure, the composition moves along at a regular, measured pace and with a fixed number of measures.
Lyrics, on the other hand, are much more poetic and prose in nature. They can speed up, slow down or, even, pause in the middle of a phrase. The task of fitting lyrics to a structured melody or, conversely, composing a melody to a set of - at times - rambling lyrics is, at times, a formidable undertaking.
Take, for example, my all-time favorite vocalist, Frank Sinatra. In examining his works, one finds that, quite often, he will extend a phrase - alter the timing, such that he blends in almost seamlessly with the phrase to follow - thus not destroying the thought or the continuity contained in the sum of those two phrases. If one attempts to do this on an instrument - and with the meter flowing inexorably by - then it can be a recipe for disaster unless done with the same utmost taste and high regard for the harmonies involved as a vocalist. On the one hand, one is listening to an assemblage of words which should make sense to the listener and not just a disjointed conglomeration of words. In the case of the instrumentalist, the listener does not have the poetic guidance in order to connect the dots unless they know the composition very well.
In either case, I rebel at listening to isolated phrases - either vocally or instrumentally - since the fluidity (an operative word so necessary in music) is invariably lost. The staccato approach of a marching band leaves me cold ----- unless it happens to be "Blues March" by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - in which case there's constant motion which belies the "march" aspect of the tune.
In short - and as others have posited - it almost becomes a necessity to tastefully expand and contract one's phrasing - to syncopate - in order to generate a listenable presentation. There's another operative word - listenable. Keep it always in mind.
With all due respect,
Richard
Almost as an aside, I would ask you to consider the following as added input to your quest.
Music - the meter, the timing, is highly structured. Unless one is perverse enough to change the time signature with each measure, the composition moves along at a regular, measured pace and with a fixed number of measures.
Lyrics, on the other hand, are much more poetic and prose in nature. They can speed up, slow down or, even, pause in the middle of a phrase. The task of fitting lyrics to a structured melody or, conversely, composing a melody to a set of - at times - rambling lyrics is, at times, a formidable undertaking.
Take, for example, my all-time favorite vocalist, Frank Sinatra. In examining his works, one finds that, quite often, he will extend a phrase - alter the timing, such that he blends in almost seamlessly with the phrase to follow - thus not destroying the thought or the continuity contained in the sum of those two phrases. If one attempts to do this on an instrument - and with the meter flowing inexorably by - then it can be a recipe for disaster unless done with the same utmost taste and high regard for the harmonies involved as a vocalist. On the one hand, one is listening to an assemblage of words which should make sense to the listener and not just a disjointed conglomeration of words. In the case of the instrumentalist, the listener does not have the poetic guidance in order to connect the dots unless they know the composition very well.
In either case, I rebel at listening to isolated phrases - either vocally or instrumentally - since the fluidity (an operative word so necessary in music) is invariably lost. The staccato approach of a marching band leaves me cold ----- unless it happens to be "Blues March" by Art Blakey and the Jazz Messengers - in which case there's constant motion which belies the "march" aspect of the tune.
In short - and as others have posited - it almost becomes a necessity to tastefully expand and contract one's phrasing - to syncopate - in order to generate a listenable presentation. There's another operative word - listenable. Keep it always in mind.
With all due respect,
Richard
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Bud Angelotti
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David Mason
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I think it's important to practice both with, and without, a metronome. I know for sure that you can never develop useful speed and fluidity until you can play all your licks giving each note it's exact length of time. What happens is, you can work one certain lick up to a pretty scary velocity, but you're speeding up and slowing down within the lick. So when you try to apply that speed to any other lick with different strings and positions, it won't work. When you try to apply more speed to licks that are full off odd-length note durations, it's like... a train engine with square wheels?
When my little guitar grommets ask me what's the "best" effect pedal, I tell them that a delay pedal - a clean digital delay with long settings, up to 1500ms at least - is the one that will help their playing the most. On steel guitar, you can play your favorite lick in the easy position - then duplicate it, on every other set of strings you can find. Yikes! Your speed as a player is actually determined by your slowest lick, not your fastest... the delay is also really, really useful for checking harmonies and scale/chord relations.
But I also think it's important to just play some, "play" as in child-like exploration. Even with a metronome, practice shouldn't feel chore-like all the time. I've heard that the ideal is to "make everything you play sound like music." It's a hard thing to do but nice to keep in mind - an awful lot of compositions "grow" out of some technical exercise... but a fair amount of them sound like it too!
When my little guitar grommets ask me what's the "best" effect pedal, I tell them that a delay pedal - a clean digital delay with long settings, up to 1500ms at least - is the one that will help their playing the most. On steel guitar, you can play your favorite lick in the easy position - then duplicate it, on every other set of strings you can find. Yikes! Your speed as a player is actually determined by your slowest lick, not your fastest... the delay is also really, really useful for checking harmonies and scale/chord relations.
But I also think it's important to just play some, "play" as in child-like exploration. Even with a metronome, practice shouldn't feel chore-like all the time. I've heard that the ideal is to "make everything you play sound like music." It's a hard thing to do but nice to keep in mind - an awful lot of compositions "grow" out of some technical exercise... but a fair amount of them sound like it too!
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Christopher Woitach
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In what universe does syncopation, so called "jazz type" or any other, negatively effect "rock solid timing"? Are you sure you are using the term correctly, and not instead referring to speeding up and slowing down time in a phrase?
Country licks are full of syncopation
If you don't like jazz, fine. Your dislike most likely has absolutely zero to do with syncopation, which you should practice, as well as more basic subdivisions.
syn·co·pa·tion (sngk-pshn, sn-)
n.
1. Music - A shift of accent in a passage or composition that occurs when a normally weak beat is stressed.
2. Something, such as rhythm, that is syncopated.
3. Grammar Syncope.
Country licks are full of syncopation
If you don't like jazz, fine. Your dislike most likely has absolutely zero to do with syncopation, which you should practice, as well as more basic subdivisions.
syn·co·pa·tion (sngk-pshn, sn-)
n.
1. Music - A shift of accent in a passage or composition that occurs when a normally weak beat is stressed.
2. Something, such as rhythm, that is syncopated.
3. Grammar Syncope.
Christopher, in the context of the OP, syncopation nukes rock solid timing because, to crudely simplify and paraphrase, "it's tough and/or boring to play it like it's written, is it OK to play it my way?" kinda answers itself.
2 pedal steels, a lapStrat, and an 8-string Dobro (and 3 ukes)
More amps than guitars, and not many effects
More amps than guitars, and not many effects
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Curt Trisko
- Posts: 913
- Joined: 12 Jan 2012 1:32 pm
- Location: St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
I'll try to record a video of me playing this weekend to show you what I mean. Christopher is right that there's already a lot of syncopation in country licks. I play them in a variation that sounds best to my ear on any given day.
I've been practicing this song that someone on here posted a few weeks ago:
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... c8831a8970
I've found room for syncopation in the downward run at the end. I can show that to you guys. Like I said before, a lot of my syncopation choices develop from my early mistakes in trying to match the recording's playing rhythm.
Once I post it, I also would like some advice on my blocking choices. My palm blocking is still messy sometimes, but I've gotten to the point where I don't even think about palm v. pick blocking anymore. It just happens by itself.
I've been practicing this song that someone on here posted a few weeks ago:
http://bb.steelguitarforum.com/viewtopi ... c8831a8970
I've found room for syncopation in the downward run at the end. I can show that to you guys. Like I said before, a lot of my syncopation choices develop from my early mistakes in trying to match the recording's playing rhythm.
Once I post it, I also would like some advice on my blocking choices. My palm blocking is still messy sometimes, but I've gotten to the point where I don't even think about palm v. pick blocking anymore. It just happens by itself.
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Curt Trisko
- Posts: 913
- Joined: 12 Jan 2012 1:32 pm
- Location: St. Paul, Minnesota, USA
Here's the video:
http://youtu.be/YTfPVMw37UM
I know the timing isn't good, so try to ignore that. I rush things when I record myself. Pay attention to the 2nd run. That's what I'm talking about.
http://youtu.be/YTfPVMw37UM
I know the timing isn't good, so try to ignore that. I rush things when I record myself. Pay attention to the 2nd run. That's what I'm talking about.