How to Switch Between Keyboards While Playing

Video Transcript

BEN ANDERSON: Hi. I'm Ben Anderson with Expert Village, and I'm here today to talk to you about syncopation with keyboards. Syncopation is a really confusing term. It's technical for--it deals with talking about rhythm. Say, you have a steady rhythm, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four. That would be a steady rhythm. A syncopation of that would be following off the rhythm. So, say, if I'm doing one, two, three, four, syncopation would be the beats in between the one, the two and three and the four. So, for example like, one, and two, and three, and four, and. Like the "ands" are the syncopations. So, say, I'm playing a straight beat, one, two, three, four, syncopation might sound a little something like this, one, two, three, four. It doesn't stay quite on the beat, but at the same time it still is following the rhythm. It just lands on the off beat. There's a difference between the on-beat and the offbeat. The on-beat would be following right along with the tempo one, two, three, four; but the offbeats would be those one, and two, and three, and four. Those are what are called the offbeats. In syncopation, will oftentimes--that's really what syncopation really refers to. And it's used in not all of the different genres of music. It's used a lot of times in jazz, for example; it's where it is most commonly used. But it can also be used in rock and roll music. I, in fact, oftentimes will play different syncopated beats if that's how the song is written in my band, I'll play along with it and I'll have to follow the syncopations that are set in, but what's really important is that you stay in rhythm and you keep time even if you are playing on the offbeats; it's very important that you still follow the rhythm. So, how does it all tie in together with the on-beats and the offbeats and the syncopation with the keyboard, is that a keyboard, considering you're more often than not, you're going to be a backing or a support musician in a band rather than the front man or the main instrument in a song. So, oftentimes, filling in that syncopation helps fill out sound that might not be there, especially if every other instrument is following right on the down beat. Having the keyboards fill in on the off beats helps fill out sound where they're normally wouldn't be there.

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