Rhythm’s Gonna Get ‘Ya! (Video 2 of 5)

This happened to me at a rehearsal once. We were all giving the sixteenth notes a slight shuffle but one of us was playing them completely straight.
Me: “Hang on, the rhythm isn’t clicking. Give it a bit of a shuffle.”

Bandmate: “Shuffle? It’s not a shuffle.”

Me: “Yeah, it’s shuffled. You are playing it completely straight. That’s not the feel.”

Bandmate: “Oh, you want syncopated?”

Ouch.

Listen, I am not about being the theory or rhythm police, but you gotta communicate right. Or listen right, or whatever. And the fact is that syncopated is not the same as shuffled.

Don’t believe me?

I show you a straight rhythm that is syncopated and a shuffled rhythm that is syncopated!

Watch here!