It really cannot be done while keeping the song as showing 4 beats per bar.

I once tried expanding to make every two bars equal one bar of four, could make that happen in Mercy, Mercy, Mercy, but did not like the feel of any accompaniment style I could come up with at the time.

So what I did (and still do) for that particular song is to put a Gm on beat 1, another on beat 2, then in the next bar, I have a Gm, BUT it is set to All Instruments Rest.

Then I put the Melody on the Melody track, using my MIDI keyboard to record a two-note sax patch harmony of the Melody and the syncopation is in the Melody only for that bar.

It is a workaround. While the two saxes play the syncopated part properly, I also play it on the Rhodes patch at the same time. Nobody to date has ever noticed.

But I performed Mercy, Mercy, Mercy live using this method, the MIDI patch set to a standard Rhodes sound. For the very first chorus, I set it up as an Intro in BB, but then muted every chord to a Rest All. Then I entered nothing but quarter notes on the third space in a row throughout, but changed the Velocity of each note to 1. When viewing the Melody track, which is what I keep on the scren when playing live, I get the notes highlighting silently and use that like a metronome to play the original Zawinul Rhodes Piano intro once thru, and then the song starts. To the audience, it is an illusion that looks like the band starts right when it is supposed to start.

If you would like my songfile, send me a PM with your email addy in it. Would save you the time of entering all that. Or at least you could get some ideas for a more customized version.


--Mac

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