InstruMental Member since Nov 10th 2005 12463 posts
Thu Jun-01-06 06:35 PM
1. "Syncopation is the switching up of strong and weak beats" In response to Reply # 0
It's halfway useless to talk about it in a lot of modern pop genres because many of them are so highly syncopated just as part of stylistic practice. In whole swathes of salsa dance band charts, notes on the downbeat sound more syncopated than those on the upbeats.
As a general concept to practice in composition, one might just suggest moving things around more, getting off the usual places hits are, hell, taking the snare off the 2 and 4 once in a while.
...is the process by which the timing of drum hits programmed "live" are digitally corrected to the closest subdivision of the beat that you assign (such as 16th or 32nd notes). It's a way of "smoothing" out the timing of your programming...and it's something that I personally never use. You'll never get a truly soulful sound without the human element of error in those minute quirks in timing.
Plus, it's a crutch that prevents people from improving their drum timing. Get on your J.O. and you'll eventually get smoother timing.
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