Syncopation

I've been listening to the "jukebox" on Banjo Hangout for the last day at work. It's great, because most of the tracks are strictly instrumental, and the few that aren't you can just skip. Also, while quality can be a bit uneven, of both recording and ability, it's generally pretty good, and is often excellent. I highly recommend it. One thing I've noticed is that there are several players who play perfectly proficiently - they hit all the right notes - but they just don't grab me. Their playing is good, but boring. I think the problem is that they don't syncopate. They play every note ON THE BEAT, and it's just...boring. A few people syncopate too much, and that gets irritating, but it isn't boring.

I'm going to have to record myself playing more tunes, and make sure I syncopate enough. Cathy Moore, on her You Tube channel, has a video about putting "drive" in your banjo playing. I'll link to that later, when I have time to look for it. She discusses this issue, but I hadn't been able to really hear the difference until listening to so many user-uploaded files on banjo hangout. Now I just want to get the hell out of this office and make sure I'm not putting people to sleep with on-the-nose playing! Oh well...