Syncopation and Independence
The term syncopation means displacing the normal flow of accents. In most western music accents occur on the beat and particularly the first and third beats of a bar of * time. However, in African American music such as Blues, Jazz, Funk and Hip Hop, and styles like Rock which are derived from this music, accents often occur on the second and fourth beats (the backbeat) and also in between the beats. When this occurs, the rhythm is described as syncopated.
You have already played many syncopated beats, but it is worth studying syncopation as a subject in itself. This will give you more control over everything you play. The exercises in this book dealing with eight 8th note positions and sixteen 16th note positions are excellent for developing control of syncopated rhythms.
Another good way to work on syncopation is to play a basic beat and then improvise rhythms with one of the limbs (e.g., left hand) as you play, emphasising notes which are off the beat. Once you can do this, swap your improvising to another limb (e.g., right foot), and so on until you can freely improvise with each of your four limbs. This process is shown in the following examples. By practicing this type of exercise, you will develop good independence between all four limbs.
In this example the left hand improvises on the snare drum while the right hand plays an eighth note pattern on the ride cymbal, the right foot plays a quarter note pattern on the bass drum and the left foot plays the backbeat on the hi-hats.
This time the right foot plays the syncopated pattern while the left hand reverts to the backbeat. To keep the demonstration simple, all four of these examples use the same syncopated pattern. However, once you can play the pattern, it is important that you improvise with whatever limb you are focusing on.
Now the syncopated pattern is played on the ride cymbal by the right hand.
Finally the syncopated pattern is played on the hi-hats by the left foot.
