{"id":127288,"date":"2022-03-01T06:20:00","date_gmt":"2022-03-01T14:20:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/?p=127288"},"modified":"2023-05-31T19:59:57","modified_gmt":"2023-06-01T02:59:57","slug":"12-ways-to-play-better-blues-guitar-lesson-1-syncopation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/12-ways-to-play-better-blues-guitar-lesson-1-syncopation\/","title":{"rendered":"12 Ways to Play Better Blues Guitar – Lesson 1: Syncopation"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Welcome to 12 Ways to Play Better Blues Guitar<\/a><\/strong>, a lesson series that will give you a solid foundation in this essential style. In this lesson, we\u2019re going to talk about syncopation\u2014playing around with a melody\u2019s rhythmic placement over the bass notes to make the music sound cooler. Written melodies, such as lead sheets or the official sheet music versions of published songs, tend to keep everything as squared-off and on-the-beat as possible. So if you learn a melody from the printed page, it often doesn\u2019t sound the way you\u2019re used to hearing people play the same song on recordings. As guitar players, we tend to learn things by ear anyway, but even then, knowing the difference between when a melody\u2019s being played on the beat and when it\u2019s being played with more syncopation can help you figure out what\u2019s going on and how it relates to the overall groove.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When you play fingerstyle, understanding syncopation is an essential part of lining up those slippery blues phrases your fingers need to play with the steady on-the-beat pulse your thumb is laying down. If you take a melody that\u2019s on the beat, playing a series of pinches with your thumb and a finger (Example 1<\/strong>), nothing is syncopated. But if you simply move that first high E to the \u201cand\u201d of beat 1, instead of playing it on 2, then you\u2019re introducing syncopation (Example 2<\/strong>). You can move up the next two notes as well, so that you\u2019re picking all of the higher notes on the \u201cands,\u201d leading into the bass notes. So that\u2019s the feeling of syncopation, and you don\u2019t have to use it on everything. In fact, it\u2019s often best when you use it just some of the time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Let\u2019s take something a little more complicated. In Example 3<\/strong>, you have a melody note that\u2019s on the \u201cand\u201d of beat 2\u2014the only one you\u2019re not playing with a pinch. Nothing\u2019s really syncopated yet, because there\u2019s no emphasis on a weak beat. But as before, by moving the first high E to the \u201cand\u201d of beat 1, as shown in Example 4<\/strong>, things become syncopated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now take Ex. 3 and add a bar, with the final melody note landing on beat 1 (Example 5<\/strong>). In the previous figures, the syncopation has occurred in the first half of a given measure, so now try syncopating on the back end (Example 6<\/strong>). After that, syncopate the front end as well (Example 7<\/strong>). Notice that all of the melody notes are on the offbeat except that on beat 3. And it\u2019s having that moment where you do actually play on the downbeat that gives some context for the syncopation. Again, if everything\u2019s syncopated, it doesn\u2019t sound as effective as if even most of it is syncopated.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Once you\u2019re comfortable with these basic patterns, you can add some more melody notes. Example 8<\/strong> is based on the exact same rhythms as Ex. 7, but adds a blue note\u2014G natural\u2014on the \u201cand\u201d of beat 1 and beat 3. You might recognize this as the melody to the blues standard \u201cBaby, Please Don\u2019t Go.\u201d (See a transcription of the Big Bill Broonzy version in the November 2014 issue of Acoustic Guitar<\/em><\/a><\/strong>.) Example 9 <\/strong>follows through with the rest of this classic melody. So that\u2019s how to take the basic coordination of the thumb and fingers and move the melody forward to create syncopation and a more swinging\u2014and musical\u2014time feel.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

David Hamburger is a composer, guitarist, and instructor based in Austin, Texas. <\/em>www.fretboardconfidential.com<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Explore syncopation\u2014playing around with a melody\u2019s rhythmic placement over the bass notes to make the music sound cooler.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":127291,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"video","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"Explore syncopation\u2014playing around with a melody\u2019s rhythmic placement over the bass notes to make the music sound cooler.","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false}}},"categories":[1656,1654],"tags":[1387],"ppma_author":[1586],"blocksy_meta":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/11\/Acoustic-Guitar-Blues-Lesson-12-Ways-to-Play-Better-Blues-Lesson-One-Syncopation-David-Hamburger-e1668023955989.jpg?fit=900%2C506&ssl=1","authors":[{"term_id":1586,"user_id":0,"is_guest":1,"slug":"david-hamburger","display_name":"David Hamburger","avatar_url":{"url":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/David-Hamburger.jpg","url2x":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/11\/David-Hamburger.jpg"},"user_url":"https:\/\/www.fretboardconfidential.com\/","last_name":"Hamburger","first_name":"David","description":"David Hamburger is a composer, guitarist, and instructor based in Austin, Texas. He is the author of our best-selling Acoustic Guitar Method<\/a><\/i>."}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127288"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=127288"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127288\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":136051,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/127288\/revisions\/136051"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/127291"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=127288"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=127288"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=127288"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/acousticguitar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=127288"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}