How to Create Syncopation with Keyboards

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 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, the three and the four. So, for example like one and two and three and four and, like the "ands" are the syncopation. 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's still following the rhythm. It just lands on the offbeat. 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, and syncopation will oftentimes--that's really what syncopation really refers to, and it's used in not all the different genres of music. It's used a lot of times in jazz for example, it's where it's most commonly used, but it can also be used in rock and roll music; I, in fact, often times 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 offbeat. It's very important that you still follow the rhythm. So, how this all ties 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; it helps fill out sound that might not be there, especially if every other instrument is following--is falling right on the downbeat. Having the keyboards fill in on the offbeats, it helps fill out sound where they normally wouldn't be there.

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