[MUSIC] At the end of the class video I was talking about syncopation. What's syncopation? Well actually the term comes from a Greek word, syncope, to cut off, or to to compress. In music, syncopation works this way. A composer sets up a beat and an expectation of a beat. But then, throws in a strong pulse off that beat. Something off the beat. Here are two examples. [MUSIC] Here's our beat. [MUSIC] So there is a simple instance of syncopation, where you see the arrows. Let's take a look at another example here. This time from the well know theme song to the TV or the cartoon show, The Simpsons. So we could start a beat. [MUSIC] Pretty catchy, maybe that's why that show is so popular. To drive home the point of syncopation one more time, let's watch another class video. So let's play just a little bit of The Entertainer very slowly. My question to you is where is the syncopation? Is it in the left hand of the piano or in the right hand of the piano. Is it in the bass or the melody? [MUSIC] Where's the syncopation, left hand? Right hand? Right hand. Bass is just going. Well, what is the bass going? [MUSIC] In that fashion. One, it's playing eighth notes. One and two and, sub divided into beat. Where as the syncopation. [MUSIC] It's there. you di, di, di, di, di and so on. So you're tapping your foot, you're tapping the beat. And a lot of the music is coming off the beat. Let's see if we can do that. Let's see if we can create our own syncopated orchestra in here. We've got an example up here, this is the conception of it. Let's see if we can actually execute it. What I'd like you to do, everybody tap your foot, we're going to do this in fours just for because I think it works out better. So everybody tap your foot with a four beat. Here we go one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four nice and loud. Come on. I want to hear it. [SOUND] Okay, now take your hand on a chair, your notebook, your computer, whatever and do syncopation off of that. According to this pattern. One, two, ready go. Da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da da, da, da, dum. Okay, good, I see Daniel down here's got this nailed. Okay. So that's what syncopation is and it isn't much more difficult than that. But if syncopation is hearing an accent off the beat, how is it that composers tell us initially where the beat is? And what the meter is? Crucial here is the phenomenon of the downbeat. The most stressed and always the first sound of every measure. It's called the downbeat among other reasons, because the conductor's hand always goes down with the first beat in every measure. One, two, one, two, or one, two, three, one, two, three. Composers are always sending us messages. Messages in musical sound, not spoken words. There are four ways that composers signal to us where the downbeat is in music. Four ways they tell us where to stomp our foot most loudly to get things organized. In fact, when you dance, you've gotta get the composer's message. You've gotta get a sense of where the downbeat is or you can't proceed. So here's how composers tell us where the downbeat is. Through duration, through accent, through range, and through change of harmony. Exactly how this works is shown in the next class video. Okay, way number one. Way number one. That has to do with duration, duration. Notes are simply longer. Held longer. That's how we have a sense of where the downbeat is. [MUSIC] Beautiful. I guess it's a spiritual. Beautiful music. But think about that. [MUSIC] Short long, short long, short long, short long, short long, short long, short long. And all of those long notes are coming on the downbeat. So that's how we start to hear that as a downbeat. And that's how we know to make our hand go down at that point. So that's one way. Now another way is through accent. And to exemplify this let's turn to some classical music, the music of Mozart. So here we have Mozart's 40th Symphony. His famous G minor symphony, and Linda, go ahead and start to play it. Just go ahead. Maybe a second or two before it pops up, but it's going to come up. [MUSIC] Several of you were actually conducting this. That's great. That's great. Okay this happens to be in duple meter and that's fine. That wasn't the question here but great. You're hearing that and I'm delighted. What Mozart has done here, if we could get the score up here of Mozart's music, we would see that he has put a little sort of arrow, over top of, a wedge over top of each of the downbeats. [MUSIC] So that the string player will really accent those. But the string player would be accenting them anyway. Why? Any violinists in here, or anybody ever played a stringed instrument? What are you always told to do? If you are playing a downbeat with an up bow, are you in good shape? No, no, no, no, no. Your teacher would not be happy with that, your bowing pattern is probably backward at that point. String players are taught, whether it's cellists going this way, downbeat, or violas and violinists coming down this way that the downward motion of the hand or the strong pull across should come with the downbeat. That emphasizes the downbeat. That's how we know the downbeat. So, so far we've had duration and accent. Mozart is actually writing accent into this. The third way that composers signal to us, that we pick up almost intuitively, the whereabouts of downbeats is through patterns of accompaniment. We'll call it range. Here's a waltz by Ricard Strauss, not to be confused excuse me, by Johann Strauss, not to be confused with Ricard Strauss, that we heard last time. [MUSIC] >> And so on. What is important here is the left hand. >> [MUSIC] >> That's why we hear a triple pattern here. We're hearing two weak beats and the strong beat is always in the lower position here. So we're getting low, middle, middle, low, middle, middle. Or it could be something as we had the other day in the Tchaikovsky piano concerto. Low, middle, high, low, middle,high. But each time the downbeat seems to be coming in association with that lowest note. So, range or position here in the accompaniment can often times signal this information to us. And finally, and most important, these others I think have been pretty straight forward. These others have been pretty straight forward. But, what has not been straight forward is something that you might listen to many, many times, and not be aware of, and that is chord changes. If you know that we have chords in music. [MUSIC] Sort of these building blocks that support a melody. And they have to change for that melody to be consonant all the time. But where they change, often times, is on the downbeat. Most frequently, chord changes come on the downbeat. So, composers signal to us in a fourth way, the downbeat, by means of chord change. Now, we're going to play you just a little bit of pop music. Not too loud, Linda, 'because this thing is really hyped up. But let's listen to a little of this. It's in a straight forward four. Rock really comes forth not so much in twos but in fours, so we'll call this a four four and you can kind of beat a four pattern to it, or you can beat a two pattern, it doesn't really matter. But notice that whenever the chords are changing, they're changing on downbeats. So let's hear a little bit of this and then we'll stop so they don't sue us for copyright infringement, when we go somewhere else and take another chunk. [MUSIC] Okay, listen. [MUSIC] Change. [MUSIC] Change. [MUSIC] Change. [MUSIC] Okay, so that's all they're doing there. They're just taking every time their changing, and also every time I say change, and eventually you'd be saying change too. Every time they're changing, your hand is going down. Your hand is going down. So chord changes may be the most powerful of all of these aspects of where the downbeat is.
