How to Create Syncopation With Keyboards

So you want to master the art of playing the keyboard. You're following along with the drummer and counting off your rhythms. Now it's time to learn about syncopation. Syncopation is another kind of rhythm, essentially playing on the off-beat. Here's how to produce syncopation in rhythm on a keyboard.

Difficulty: Challenging

Instructions

1. Start with your basic rhythm. It will usually be in four beats to a bar, so you'll be counting one, two , three, four. Get the rhythm going by either counting along, snapping your fingers, clapping or tapping your foot.

2. Find the off-beat. Insert a keyboard note in between two beats, and you'll hear how the note offsets the rhythm.

3. Get a syncopated rhythm going on your keyboard by playing in between each beat, so your keyboard rhythm runs parallel to the actual beat. Try adding syncopated beats in groups of threes on a bar, so that you play three and rest on the fourth. This will allow you to hear how the syncopated rhythm adds flavor to the music.

4. Drop from sync into the on-beat by picking a beat to move from in between beats to on the actual beat. You'll basically choose a beat to play double-fast, and then go back to a regular rhythm, and you'll be on-beat instead of off-beat.

5. Separate your notes into time intervals. If the changing sync to on-beat confuses you, try writing your bars down and adding rhythm with timed notes (half-notes, quarter-notes, eighth notes, etc.) You'll see that you go from sync to on-beat by playing a note twice as fast as the others.