Below is the lesson for “Sunset Skip” by Rock Class 101

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A beautiful fingerpicking piece that also helps you tackle syncopated rhythms. This song features a two-bar rhythmic pattern that repeats throughout. To explain it, let’s look at the first two bars of the tune.

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Listen to these two bars played with a metronome in 4/4 at 90 BPM.

In the example above, we can see that measure one is not syncopated; however, measure two is. Every note in measure two lands on the off-beats (the &s) except for beat 4. Try to memorize this two-bar rhythm, as it’s the main pattern used again and again in the piece, with just a couple of exceptions.

P.S. If syncopation is a new concept for you, jump into this lesson to gain a better understanding of it.