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Beat (music)

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For other uses, seebeat music,beat (acoustics),drum beat,andbeat (disambiguation).
Metric levels: beat level shown in middle with division levels above and multiple levels below.

Inmusicandmusic theory,thebeatis the basic unit of time, thepulse(regularly repeating event), of themensural level[1](orbeat level).[2]The beat is often defined as the rhythm listeners would tap their toes to when listening to a piece of music, or the numbers a musiciancountswhile performing, though in practice this may be technically incorrect (often the first multiple level).[clarification needed]In popular use,beatcan refer to a variety of related concepts, includingpulse,tempo,meter,specificrhythms,andgroove.

Rhythm in music is characterized by a repeating sequence ofstressed and unstressed beats(often called "strong" and "weak" ) and divided intobarsorganized bytime signatureandtempoindications.

Beats are related to and distinguished from pulse, rhythm (grouping), and meter:

Meter is the measurement of the number of pulses between more or less regularly recurring accents. Therefore, in order for meter to exist, some of the pulses in a series must be accented—marked for consciousness—relative to others. When pulses are thus counted within a metric context, they are referred to asbeats.

— Leonard B. MeyerandCooper(1960)[3]

Metric levelsfaster than the beat level are division levels, and slower levels are multiple levels. Beat has always been an important part of music. Somemusic genressuch asfunkwill in general de-emphasize the beat, while other such asdiscoemphasize the beat to accompany dance.[4]

Division

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Main article:Metre (music) § Metric structure

As beats are combined to form measures, each beat is divided into parts. The nature of this combination and division is what determines meter. Music where two beats are combined is induple meter,music where three beats are combined is intriple meter.Music where the beat is split in two are in simple meter, music where the beat is split in three are called compound meter. Thus, simple duple (2
4,4
4,etc.), simple triple (3
4), compound duple (6
8), and compound triple (9
8). Divisions which require numbers,tuplets(for example, dividing aquarter noteinto five equal parts), are irregular divisions and subdivisions. Subdivision begins two levels below the beat level: starting with a quarter note or a dotted quarter note, subdivision begins when the note is divided into sixteenth notes.

Downbeat and upbeat

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Beginning ofBach'sBWV736, with upbeat (anacrusis) inred.Playⓘ

Thedownbeatis the first beat of thebar,i.e. number 1. Theupbeatis the last beat in the previous bar which immediately precedes, and hence anticipates, the downbeat.[5]Both terms correspond to the direction taken by the hand of aconductor.

This idea of directionality of beats is significant when you translate its effect on music. The crusis of a measure or a phrase is a beginning; it propels sound and energy forward, so the sound needs to lift and have forward motion to create a sense of direction. The anacrusis leads to the crusis, but doesn't have the same 'explosion' of sound; it serves as a preparation for the crusis.[6]

An anticipatory note or succession of notes occurring before the first barline of a piece is sometimes referred to as an upbeat figure, section or phrase. Alternative expressions include "pickup" and "anacrusis"(the latter ultimately from Greekana[ "up towards" ] andkrousis[ "strike" / "impact" ] through Frenchanacrouse). In English,anákrousistranslates literally as "pushing up". The term anacrusis was borrowed from the field ofpoetry,in which it refers to one or more unstressed extrametricalsyllablesat the beginning of a line.[5]

On-beat and off-beat

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\version "2.22.0" \header { tagline = ##f} \score { \drums \with {midiInstrument = "drums"} \with { \numericTimeSignature } { \repeat volta 2 {\stemUp r4 sne8 sne8 r4 sne r4 sne8 sne8 r4 sne \break } } \layout {} } \score { \unfoldRepeats { \drums \with {midiInstrument = "drums"}{ \repeat volta 2 { r4 sne8 sne8 r4 sne r4 sne8 sne8 r4 sne } } } \midi { \tempo 4 = 100 } }
Off-beat or backbeat pattern, popular on snare drum[7]
"Skank"guitar rhythm[8]Playⓘ.Often referred to as "upbeats", in parallel withupstrokes.

In typical Western music4
4time,countedas "1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4...",the first beat of the bar (downbeat) is usually the strongestaccentin the melody and the likeliest place for a chord change, the third is the next strongest: these are "on" beats. The second and fourth are weaker—the "off-beats". Subdivisions (like eighth notes) that fall between the pulse beats are even weaker and these, if used frequently in a rhythm, can also make it "off-beat".[9]

The effect can be easily simulated by evenly and repeatedly counting to four. As a background against which to compare these various rhythms a bass drum strike on the downbeat and a constant eighth note subdivision on ride cymbal have been added, which would be counted as follows (bolddenotes a stressed beat):

  • 12 3 412 3 4—play eighth notes and bass drum aloneⓘ
  • 12341234— the stress here on the "on" beatplayⓘBut one may syncopate that pattern and alternately stress the odd and even beats, respectively:
  • 12341234— the stress is on the "unexpected" or syncopated beatplayⓘ

So "off-beat" is a musical term, commonly applied tosyncopation,that emphasizes the weak even beats of a bar, as opposed to the usual on-beat. This is a fundamental technique ofAfrican polyrhythmthat transferred to popular western music. According to Grove Music, the "Offbeat is [often] where the downbeat is replaced by a rest or is tied over from the preceding bar".[9]The downbeat can never be the off-beat because it is the strongest beat in4
4time.[10]Certain genres tend to emphasize the off-beat, where this is a defining characteristic of rock'n'roll andskamusic.

Backbeat

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"Backbeat" redirects here. For other uses, seeBackbeat (disambiguation).
Back beat[11][12]Playⓘ
"It's got a backbeat, you can't lose it" –Chuck Berry,"Rock and Roll Music"

Aback beat,orbackbeat,is asyncopatedaccentuation on the "off" beat. In a simple4
4rhythm these are beats 2 and 4.[13]

"A big part of R&B's attraction had to do with the stompin' backbeats that make it so eminently danceable," according to theEncyclopedia of Percussion.[14]An early record with an emphasised back beat throughout was "Good Rockin' Tonight"byWynonie Harrisin 1948.[15]Although drummerEarl Palmerclaimed the honor for "The Fat Man"byFats Dominoin 1949, which he played on, saying he adopted it from the final "shout" or "out" chorus common inDixielandjazz,urban contemporary gospelwas stressing the back beat much earlier with hand-clapping andtambourines.[citation needed]There is a hand-clapping back beat on "Roll 'Em Pete"byPete JohnsonandBig Joe Turner,recorded in 1938.[citation needed]A distinctive back beat can be heard on "Back Beat Boogie" byHarry JamesAnd His Orchestra, recorded in late 1939.[16]Other early recorded examples include the final verse of "Grand Slam" byBenny Goodmanin 1942 and some sections of TheGlenn Miller Orchestra's "(I've Got A Gal In) Kalamazoo", whileamateur direct-to-disc recordingsofCharlie Christianjamming atMinton's Playhousearound the same time have a sustained snare-drum backbeat on the hottest choruses.[citation needed]

OutsideU.S.popular music, there are early recordings of music with a distinctive backbeat, such as the 1949 recording of Mangaratiba byLuiz Gonzagain Brazil.[17]

\version "2.22.0" \header { tagline = ##f} \score { \drums \with {midiInstrument = "drums"} \with { \numericTimeSignature } { \repeat volta 2 { \stemUp <cymra bd>8 cymra <cymra sne>^> cymra <cymra bd> <cymra bd> cymra <cymra sne>^>\break } } \layout {} } \score { \unfoldRepeats { \drums \with {midiInstrument = "drums"}{ \repeat volta 2 { \stemUp <cymra bd>8 cymra <cymra sne>^> cymra <cymra bd> <cymra bd> cymra <cymra sne>^>\break } } } \midi { \tempo 4 = 120 } }
Delayed backbeat (last eighth note in each measure) as in funk music[18]

Slap bass executions on the backbeat are found in styles of country western music of the 1930s, and the late 1940s early 1950s music of Hank Williams reflected a return to strong backbeat accentuation as part of the honky tonk style of country.[19] In the mid-1940s "hillbilly"musicians theDelmore Brotherswere turning out boogie tunes with a hard driving back beat, such as the No. 2 hit "Freight Train Boogie" in 1946, as well as in other boogie songs they recorded.[citation needed]SimilarlyFred Maddox's characteristic backbeat, aslapping bassstyle, helped drive a rhythm that came to be known asrockabilly,one of the early forms ofrock and roll.[20]Maddox had used this style as early as 1937.[21]

In today's popular music thesnare drumis typically used to play the backbeat pattern.[7]Earlyfunk musicoften delayed one of the backbeats so as "to give a 'kick' to the [overall] beat".[18]

Some songs, such asThe Beatles' "Please Please Me"and"I Want to Hold Your Hand",The Knack's "Good Girls Don't"andBlondie's cover ofThe Nerves' "Hanging on the Telephone",employ a double backbeat pattern.[22]In a double backbeat, one of the off beats is played as two eighth notes rather than one quarter note.[22]

Cross-beat

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Main article:Cross-beat

Cross-rhythm. A rhythm in which the regular pattern of accents of the prevailing meter is contradicted by a conflicting pattern and not merely a momentary displacement that leaves the prevailing meter fundamentally unchallenged

—New Harvard Dictionary of Music(1986: 216).[23][24]

Hyperbeat

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Hypermeter: 4 beat measure, 4 measure hypermeasure, and 4 hypermeasure verses. Hyperbeats in red.

Ahyperbeatis one unit ofhypermeter,generally a measure. "Hypermeter is meter, with all its inherent characteristics, at the level where measures act as beats."[24][25]

Beat perception

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Beat perception refers to the human ability to extract a periodic time structure from a piece of music.[26][27] This ability is evident in the way people instinctively move their body in time to a musical beat, made possible by a form ofsensorimotorsynchronizationcalled 'beat-based timing'. This involves identifying the beat of a piece of music and timing the frequency of movements to match it.[28][29][30] Infants across cultures display a rhythmicmotor responsebut it is not until between the ages of 2 years 6 months and 4 years 6 months that they are able to match their movements to the beat of an auditory stimulus.[31][32]

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  • Tatumrefers to a subdivision of a beat which represents the "time division that most highly coincides with note onsets".[33]
  • Afterbeatrefers to apercussionstyle where a strong accent is sounded on the second, third and fourth beats of the bar, following the downbeat.[13]
  • Inreggaemusic, the termone dropreflects the complete de-emphasis (to the point of silence) of the first beat in the cycle.
  • James Brown's signaturefunkgroove emphasized the downbeat – that is, with heavy emphasis "on the one" (the first beat of every measure) – to etch his distinctive sound, rather than the back beat (familiar to many R&B musicians) which places the emphasis on the second beat.[34][35][36]

See also

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References

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  1. ^Berry, Wallace (1976/1986).Structural Functions in Music,p. 349.ISBN0-486-25384-8.
  2. ^Winold, Allen (1975). "Rhythm in Twentieth-Century Music",Aspects of Twentieth-Century Music,p. 213. With, Gary (ed.). Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey: Prentice–Hall.ISBN0-13-049346-5.
  3. ^Cooper, Grosvenor and Meyer, Leonard B. Meyer (1960).The Rhythmic Structure of Music,p.3-4. University of Chicago Press.ISBN0-226-11521-6/ISBN0-226-11522-4.
  4. ^Rajakumar, Mohanalakshmi (2012).Hip Hop Dance.ABC-CLIO. p. 5.ISBN9780313378461.Retrieved22 November2016.
  5. ^abDogantan, Mine (2007)."Upbeat".Oxford Music Online.Grove Music Online.Archivedfrom the original on May 16, 2008.Retrieved2007-02-10.
  6. ^Cleland, Kent D. and Dobrea-Grindahl, Mary (2013).Developing Musicianship Through Aural Skills,unpaginated. Routledge.ISBN9781135173050.
  7. ^abSchroedl, Scott (2001).Play Drums Today Dude!,p. 11. Hal Leonard.ISBN0-634-02185-0.
  8. ^Snyder, Jerry (1999).Jerry Snyder's Guitar School,p. 28.ISBN0-7390-0260-0.
  9. ^ab"Beat: Accentuation. (i) Strong and weak beats".Oxford Music Online.Grove Music Online. 2007.Archivedfrom the original on May 16, 2008.Retrieved2007-02-10.
  10. ^"Off-beat".Oxford Music Online.Grove Music Online. 2007.Archivedfrom the original on May 16, 2008.Retrieved2007-02-10.
  11. ^"Introduction to the 'Chop' ", Anger, Darol.Strad(0039–2049); 10/01/2006, Vol. 117 Issue 1398, pp. 72–75.
  12. ^Horne, Greg (2004).Beginning Mandolin: The Complete Mandolin Method,p. 61. Alfred.ISBN9780739034712.
  13. ^ab"Backbeat".Oxford Music Online.Grove Music Online. 2007.Archivedfrom the original on May 16, 2008.RetrievedFebruary 10,2007.
  14. ^Beck, John H. (2013).Encyclopedia of Percussion,p. 323. Routledge.ISBN9781317747680.
  15. ^Beck (2013), p. 324.
  16. ^"The Ultimate Jazz Archive - Set 17/42",Discogs.com.Accessed August 6, 2014.
  17. ^"Mangaratiba - Luiz Gonzaga".YouTube.Archivedfrom the original on 2021-12-21.
  18. ^abMattingly, Rick (2006).All About Drums,p. 104. Hal Leonard.ISBN1-4234-0818-7.
  19. ^Tamlyn, Gary Neville (1998).The Big Beat: Origins and Development of Snare Backbeat and other Accompanimental Rhythms in Rock'n'Roll(Ph.D.).???. pp. 342–43.
  20. ^"Riding the Rails to Stardom - The Maddox Brothers and Rose",NPR News.Accessed August 6, 2014.
  21. ^"The Maddox Bros & Rose".Rockabilly Hall of Fame.Archivedfrom the original on 3 July 2011.RetrievedJune 29,2011.
  22. ^abCateforis, C. (2011).Are We Not New Wave?: Modern Pop at the Turn of the 1980s.University of Michigan Press. pp. 140–41.ISBN978-0-472-03470-3.
  23. ^New Harvard Dictionary of Music(1986: 216). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  24. ^abNeal, Jocelyn (2000). Neal, Jocelyn; Wolfe, Charles K.; Akenson, James E. (eds.).Songwriter's Signature, Artist's Imprint: The Metric Structure of a Country Song.Lexington, KY: University Press of Kentucky. p.115.ISBN0-8131-0989-2.{{cite book}}:|work=ignored (help)
  25. ^Also: Rothstein, William (1990).Phrase Rhythm in Tonal Music,pp. 12–13. Macmillan.ISBN978-0028721910
  26. ^Grahn, J. A., & Brett, M. (2007). Rhythm and beat perception in motor areas of the brain. Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 19(5), 893-906.
  27. ^Patel, A. D., & Iversen, J. R. (2014). The evolutionary neuroscience of musical beat perception: the Action Simulation for Auditory Prediction (ASAP) hypothesis. Frontiers in systems neuroscience, 8, 57.
  28. ^Iversen, J. R. (2016). 21 In the beginning was the beat: evolutionary origins of musical rhythm in humans. In: Hartenberger, R. (Ed.). (2016). The Cambridge companion to percussion. Cambridge University Press. p. 281–295.
  29. ^Iversen, J. R., & Balasubramaniam, R. (2016). Synchronization and temporal processing. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 8, 175-180.
  30. ^Grahn, J. A. (2012). Neural mechanisms of rhythm perception: current findings and future perspectives. Topics in cognitive science, 4(4), 585-606.
  31. ^Nettl, B. (2000). An ethnomusicologist contemplates universals in musical sound and musical culture. In: Wallin, N. L., Merker, B., & Brown, S. (Eds.). (2001). The origins of music. MIT press.
  32. ^Zentner, M., & Eerola, T. (2010). Rhythmic engagement with music in infancy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(13), 5768-5773.
  33. ^Jehan, Tristan (2005). "3.4.3 Tatum grid".Creating Music By Listening(Ph.D.). MIT.
  34. ^Pareles, Jon (2006-12-25)."James Brown, the 'Godfather of Soul', Dies at 73".The New York Times.Retrieved2007-01-10.According toThe New York Times,by the "mid-1960s Brown was producing his own recording sessions. In February 1965, with 'Papa's Got a Brand New Bag,' he decided to shift the beat of his band: from the one-two-three-fourbackbeat toone-two-three-four. 'I changed from the upbeat to the downbeat,' Mr. Brown said in 1990. 'Simple as that, really.'"
  35. ^Gross, T. (1989)."Maceo Parker: The Hardest Working Sideman".Fresh Air.WHYY-FM/National Public Radio. Retrieved January 22, 2007. According toMaceo Parker,Brown's former saxophonist, playing on the downbeat was at first hard for him and took some getting used to. Reflecting back to his early days with Brown's band, Parker reported that he had difficulty in playing "on the one" during solo performances, since he was used to hearing and playing with the accent on the second beat.
  36. ^Anisman, Steve (January 1998)."Lessons in listening – Concepts section: Fantasy, Earth Wind & Fire, The Best of Earth Wind & Fire Volume I, Freddie White".Modern Drummer Magazine.pp. 146–152.RetrievedJanuary 21,2007.

Further reading

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