syncopation

In music, syncopation is a stress on a normally unstressed beat, or a missing beat where a stressed one would normally be expected. Syncopation is used in many musical styles, including classical music, but it is fundamental in such styles as reggae, ragtime, rap, jump blues, jazz and often in dubstep and progressive metal. In the form of a back beat, syncopation is used in virtually all contemporary popular music.

Types of syncopation

Even-note syncopation
In meters with even numbers of beats (2/4, 4/4, etc.), the stress normally falls on the odd-numbered beats. If the even-numbered beats are stressed instead, the rhythm is syncopated.

Off-beat syncopation
The stress can shift by less than a whole beat so it falls on an off-beat, as in the following example where the stress in the first bar is shifted by an eighth note (or quaver):

Playing a note ever-so-slightly before or after a beat is another form of syncopation because this produces an unexpected accent.

Anticipated bass
Anticipated bass is a bass tone that comes syncopated shortly before the downbeat, which is used in Son montuno Cuban dance music. Timing can vary, but it usually comes less than an eighth note before the one and three beats in 4/4...

Missed-beat syncopation
Another type of syncopation is the missed beat, in which a rest is substituted for an expected note's beginning (van der Merwe 1989, pp. 321). For example, if the musician suddenly does not play anything on beat 1, that would also be syncopation.

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."

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