Teaching Syncopation: part one

Today’s Readers Choice blog post topic is brought to you by Rachel. She suggested that I write about “Explaining Syncopation Clearly”. There are no doubts in my mind that syncopation can be difficult to teach, particularly when we spend so much of our time coaxing students to “stay on the beat”. However, like most musical concepts, I think the trick to teaching syncopation clearly is finding a way for students to feel and identify the concept before seeing it. Therefore, in part one of Teaching Syncopation, I’ll be highlighting repertoire and movement activities you can use to help students hear and feel syncopation.

Choosing the Repertoire
Start by choosing a song or instrumental piece to be the foundation upon which all other examples of syncopation can be built. The following is a short list of songs/pieces that showcase syncopation, with a variety of genres represented.

Jupiter from the Planets by Holst
It Don’t Mean a Thing if it Aint’ Got That Swing by Duke Ellington
Rhapsody in Blue by Gershwin
The Entertainer by Scott Joplin
The Sacrifice from The Rite of Spring by Stravinsky
Roar by Katy Perry (in the chorus)

The following games are meant to help your students recognize the feeling of syncopation. Before you play the games, make sure your students have mastered keeping a steady beat, as well as identifying strong and weak beats. Those skills will lay the foundation for understanding syncopation.

Rock the Boat

• Students sit in small groups of 4-8
• Each student has a pair of rhythm sticks
• Tell them they’re sitting in a boat, and they must row the boat (tap rhythm sticks on the floor) with the steady beat of the rhythm patterns they hear.
• When they feel the boat rocking (a syncopated rhythm), they have to stop tapping and place the sticks in their laps
• Alternate between syncopated and straight rhythms, always using the same syncopated rhythm found in Alabama Gal
• If one of the groups does not make the switch quickly enough, their boat “capsizes” and each student must “swim” to another boat and continue rowing
• Continue playing the game until students are able to identify the syncopation
• If students need a challenge, ask them to clap the syncopated rhythm each time they hear it

Bump Up Tomato is a song/activity that I originally found on the blog Treble in the Classroom. I love that the premise behind the game is to make others laugh. As a teacher, I would’ve loved to join in as I rarely had a student who could keep a straight face around me.