Online Drum Lesson 3 - Syncopation

Continuing the series of online drum lessons, this time the concept of syncopation is introduces. And as in the previous online drum lesson, you are welcome to practice this one by tapping your hands and feet, or by using an actual drum set.

In music, the concept known as syncopation means playing or accenting a note that is offset from the regular beat. What this means for our drum practice here, is that we're going to play some snare notes in between the hi-hat notes.

Here is the first syncopated beat:

The dashes in the count mark the "in between" spaces. Notice how the third snare is played right after the last hi-hat. This is the syncopated sound. Thinking in terms of a drum loop, that third snare is effectively right between the last and first hi-hat sounds. When practicing this beat it may be easier to think of the third snare sound as coming right before the first bass note when the measure is looped.

The following beat is a little more advanced, and for clarity, the sound files play it a bit slower:

This beat has two syncopated snare notes, the second and third. Note the interplay between the syncopated snare sounds and the bass drum, which comes right between them.