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Glite Dictionary
🥁 Off-beat rhythm ✂️ Omitting sounds
syncopation

syncopation

2 8.0
A rhythm that puts strong beats on weak parts of music to make it lively
  • noun
  • /ˌsɪŋkəˈpeɪʃən/
  • Specialized
translation icon : sincopación
  • The drummer added syncopation to the song, making the rhythm feel more lively and engaging.
  • syncopation and complex rhythms
  • rhythmic patterns, and syncopation
  • clapping the syncopations

So when you're playing those syncopations against the time, if this moves, it's not happening.

Examples

  • The melody may be sung with very little syncopation, but it is more fun to jazz it up a bit for older students.

    Academic text (2005)

  • While this group loves big band music, they have found swinging eighth notes and syncopation harder than they anticipated.

    Academic text (1997)

  • Recorded music with syncopation could be played as students entered the room.

    Academic text (2012)

  • And then there's so much syncopation in the guitar part.

  • Students can also move, beat, clap, or drum the syncopation or bass parts of the music.

    Academic text (2008)

  • Everything from the feel of a steady beat to subdivision, syncopation, and odd meters is enhanced through movement.

    Academic text (1995)

  • I wrote a poem about syncopation that had both straight rhythms and syncopations.

    Academic text (2004)

  • There's something about musicality and syncopation that excites me.

    Uprooted: The Journey of Jazz Dance (2020)

  • So we have ties over bars, we have lots of syncopation, we have irregular phrasing, somewhat irregular metrical patterns as well.

  • As a teacher and conductor, you become a coach in helping the lead singer with vocal techniques such as slurs, syncopations, and embellishments.

    Academic text (2003)

How Syncopated

syncopation
  • Specialized
2 8.0
free rhythm
  • Specialized
7.7

Surface Forms

syncopation singular
syncopations plural

Morphology

syncopation = syncopate (semi-transparent) = syncop + ation

The musical meaning extends the core idea of displacement/cutting-off, but it is a specialized extension (accenting weak beats) that is not fully obvious to learners from the base alone.

Etymology

Syncopation comes from old Greek parts syn- 'with' and koptein 'to cut', so it originally meant 'cutting off'. So, in music syncopation is like a 'cut' in the normal beat, with accents on weak beats that make the rhythm feel lively and unexpected.