Tempo
96BPM
Bars played
0
Hits in the bar
8
Syncopation grid
one bar of 4/4 split into sixteen slots
Why am I practising this?expand
- What it teaches
- Where a note actually falls inside the beat, and how to keep the pulse when the notes avoid it.
- Problem it solves
- Rushing off-beats, guessing at syncopated figures, and losing the bar in dense sixteenths.
- Physical skill
- Independent tonguing and finger placement against a steady internal pulse.
- Theory reinforced
- Subdivision of the beat into eighths, triplets and sixteenths, and displacement of a fixed cell.
- Improvisation
- Phrases start anywhere in the bar instead of always on beat one.
- Ear training
- Hearing a figure and knowing which slot each hit occupies.
- Common mistakes
- Following the click instead of playing with it; speeding up as the figure gets sparser.
- Recommended tempo
- Set the click to 2 and 4 at 60-80 BPM before going faster.
- Increasing difficulty
- Displace the figure, thin the click to one beat per bar, then add the polyrhythm layer.
- Mastered when
- You can play the figure displaced by any amount with the click on 2 and 4 only.
How to practise it
- 01Choose a preset or tap out your own figure on the grid.
- 02Play it with a full click until it locks.
- 03Thin the click to 2 and 4, then to one beat per bar.
- 04Displace the figure and repeat, then play it on your horn over a scale.
Subdivision ladder
one pulse, four ways of filling it
- 1Quarter notes — one note per click, absolutely dead centre.
- 2Eighth notes — even, no accent creeping onto the ands.
- 3Triplets — three per click, all three the same length.
- 4Sixteenths — four per click, fingers relaxed, air unchanged.
- 5Now switch subdivision every bar without the tempo moving.
- 6Finally swing the eighths and keep the triplet feel underneath.