Lesson 29: Tied Notes and Syncopation
- Hold a tied note across a bar line and feel the bar without re-articulating.
- Play a syncopated melody whose energy lives in off-beats.
- Lessons 12–13 — eighth notes and dots.
- Tied notes across barlines.
- Syncopation.
- Off-beat emphasis.
Syncopation is the surprise of a heavy beat where you expected a light one.
A tie joins two notes of the same pitch — the second is not re-articulated; the first simply holds for both durations. Ties most often cross bar lines, sustaining a note from one bar into the next without a tongued attack on the downbeat. Syncopation is the rhythmic effect this creates: emphasis on a normally-weak beat, achieved by tying out the strong beat that would have followed.
The half note at the end of each bar ties into the next bar. Do not tongue the downbeat — just keep the note ringing.
Tongue lands on the “and” of beat two. Feel the bar resist the expected downbeat accent.
Play: a syncopated melody
An Afro-Cuban-style line in G. The downbeats are mostly avoided; the energy is in the off-beats.
Now play these
- Swing Low, Sweet Chariot
- African-American spiritual. The syncopation on “swing” and “low” is the song.
- Nobody Knows the Trouble I've Seen
- Another spiritual built on tied bar lines and off-beat accents.
- Joshua Fought the Battle of Jericho
- Syncopated G minor. The off-beats are the march.
When you can play a tied note across a bar line without an audible accent on the downbeat, move on to Lesson 30.