Meter (Continued)
Syncopation
Composers often use the element of surprise to hold our interest in music, giving us something unexpected. We have heard how composers establish a steady pulse and consistent tempo, create a meter by grouping pulses, and create rhythmic patterns using combinations of long and short tones. We generally expect rhythmic patterns, pulses, and tempos to work together in a consistent manner, with stressed tones occurring at predictable points in the music based on their relative length or because they fall on a stressed beat.
Sometimes, however, composers decide to go off the beaten path (no pun intended) and place stressed tones in unexpected places. This is called syncopation. You are probably familiar with syncopation as an integral component of musical styles such as ragtime, jazz, funk, reggae, hip hop, progressive rock, progressive metal, groove metal, bossa nova, and samba among many others.
There are also multiple examples of syncopation in Art Music. We pointed out earlier that the second movement Alla Hornpipe of the Suite No. 2 in D major by Handel is in triple meter, meaning that the pulses are in groups of three with the first pulse in each group being accented.
1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3
Listen once to the entire piece from beginning to end. Its duration is 2 minutes and 53 seconds.
Composer: George Frideric Handel
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"Water Music Suite No. 2 in D Major, HWV 349: II. Alla Hornpipe"
Now, you may wish to listen again, paying especial attention to the two halves of the first phrase—usually called the antecedent and the consequent, or sometimes question and answer. Notice how Handel places the accent away from the first beat in the antecedent, but brings it back to the first beat in the consequent.
This is the antecedent phrase with the accent off the first beat:
Composer: George Frideric Handel
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"Water Music Suite No. 2 in D Major, HWV 349: II. Alla Hornpipe" [ 00:00-00:08 ]00:08
Now, listen to the consequent phrase with the accent on the first beat:
Composer: George Frideric Handel
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"Water Music Suite No. 2 in D Major, HWV 349: II. Alla Hornpipe" [ 00:08-00:17 ]00:09
Having listened to the difference between the two, try to see if you are able to tell if the accent is on or off the first beat in the next two examples from the same piece:
Composer: George Frideric Handel
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"Water Music Suite No. 2 in D Major, HWV 349: II. Alla Hornpipe" [ 02:12-02:20 ]00:08
Composer: George Frideric Handel
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"Water Music Suite No. 2 in D Major, HWV 349: II. Alla Hornpipe" [ 02:21-02:28 ]00:07
Focused Listening
We are going to listen to the entire piece by Handel, focusing on the rhythm. Handel used three rhythmic patterns as "main ideas" in this piece, and it will be helpful for us to have a way to identify each of them. Since physical movement is often associated with rhythm for marching or dancing, we will use movement terms to describe these rhythms.
The piece begins with a syncopated rhythm. One way to move to this rhythm would be as follows: step, step, step, jump, step, run, run, run, jump, step. We will describe this as the syncopated jump-step pattern.
Composer: George Frideric Handel
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"Water Music Suite No. 2 in D Major, HWV 349: II. Alla Hornpipe" [ 00:00-00:07 ]00:07
The second important rhythm pattern in this piece uses short durations to subdivide the pulse. This suggests a rather fast movement that might be described as run, run, run, run, run a-long, run, run, run, run, run a-long.
Composer: George Frideric Handel
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"Water Music Suite No. 2 in D Major, HWV 349: II. Alla Hornpipe" [ 00:08-00:17 ]00:09
These two patterns are the main rhythmic elements in the first and third sections of the piece. The middle section uses the important accompaniment pattern we heard earlier.
Composer: George Frideric Handel
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"Water Music Suite No. 2 in D Major, HWV 349: II. Alla Hornpipe" [ 01:05-01:12 ]00:07