Syncopated Rhythms Quotes

I don't have a definition of Jazz. You're just supposed to know it when you hear it.

In the year of 1902, when I was about seventeen years old, I happened to invade one of the sections [in New Orleans] where the birth of Jazz originated from.

Trust me, the only real way to understand 'Chic' is in highfalutin terms. Our chord progressions were based on European modal melodies. I made those early 'Chic' records to impress my jazz friends.

One of the things I really like about West African guitar playing is the way it makes harmony linear. They're really spelling things out and turning chords into melodies instead of just letting them be these hanging blocks of color.

Jazz is the art of thinking out loud.

Jazz is my adventure. I'm after new chords, new ways of syncopating, new figures, new runs. How to use notes differently. That's it. Just using notes differently.

I've always found some way to kind of incorporate second-line music in what I did.

I think that the rhythm sections, drummers in particular, are the unsuing heroes of the music. It's the rhythm section that has changed the styles from one period to the other.

There's definitely that tribal Africana thing going on in my sound. It's that marching band, second-line music, that Creole-influence in the kick, and the snare that drives everything for me. I think it's really what's separated my sound from a lot of the R&B and pop music out there.

I really like the complexity of jazz, the emotional depth; I feel like there's no other music that's really as satisfying as jazz.

All syncopation means is accenting beats that you don't normally accent.

One very important side of my playing lies in rhythm; I have a very percussive style. It's one I've developed with Dream Theater over the years, and requires the guitar to be very locked into the rhythm of the drums... way more than what would normally entail.

When you talking about funk music you just talking about a collage of a lot of different types of music. They used strings, they had brass, they had vocalist.

Ragtime was a fanfare for the 20th century.

Jazz music, as is also the case with the old down-home spirituals, gospel and jubilee songs, jumps, shouts and moans, is essentially an American vernacular or idiomatic modification of musical conventions imported from Europe, beginning back during the time of the early settlers of the original colonies.

Lightning Bolt and Hella are two bands I listen to, and there's a lot of finger tapping going on there.

I grew up singing Mexican music, and that's based on indigenous Mexican rhythms. Mexican music also has an overlay of West African music, based on huapango drums, and it's kind of like a 6/8 time signature, but it really is a very syncopated 6/8. And that's how I attack vocals.