Music Composition DUMmIES

Syncopation ..........................................................................................

Notice in Figure 4-10 how the “syllabic emphasis” is not where the strong nat-

ural beats are. Syncopation is basically about putting the emphasis on the

wrong syllable. That doesn’t mean it’s “wrong,” though. Syncopation just

makes things a bit different, surprising, and spicy. In short, it’s a good way

to break up the rhythmic landscape and thereby change the mood of your

composition.

If you were counting out just the rhythm from Figure 4-10, you would get

something like the following:

one-AND two-and THREE-and four-AND one-and two-AND three-AND

four-and

As you can guess from all the examples, a composer could nearly build an

entire composition around “Shave and a Haircut” — with just a few minor

variations, we might not even know it. Depending on the accompaniment,

tempo, musical context, and any number of other variables, “Shave and a

Haircut” could completely escape our notice in a composition.

Using familiar themes in new ways is incredibly common in composition.

There’s nothing new under the sun — only a lot of old stuff, being used in

new ways. A composer could, if he or she wanted to, throw a lot of old, stale,

familiar little chestnuts at his or her listeners without their even realizing it.

Don’t be afraid of trying out some variations of a strong rhythmic phrase or

theme by offsetting the starting point of the phrase in time or using syncopa-

tion to spice it up.

By the way, such rhythmic tinkering is easily done in music software (such as

Logic Pro) by just creating or even copying someone else’s phrase or theme

and dragging it around a little. (See Chapter 2 for more on music software.)

On paper, it’s a matter of visualizing and auralizing the newly displaced

nugget of your rhythmic ingenuity.

&4

(^4) ‰
J
œœ
œ œ œb œ œ œ ‰ Jœ‰J
œ Œ
Figure 4-10:
“Shave and
a Haircut” —
syncopated
and front
phrased.
Chapter 4: Rhythm and Mood 37