Beat (music)
In
Rhythm in music is characterized by a repeating sequence of stressed and unstressed beats (often called "strong" and "weak") and divided into bars organized by time signature and tempo indications.
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 as beats.
Division
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 in
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 a quarter note
Downbeat and upbeat
The downbeat is the first beat of the
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 Greek ana ["up towards"] and krousis ["strike"/"impact"] through French anacrouse). In English, anákrousis translates literally as "pushing up". The term anacrusis was borrowed from the field of poetry, in which it refers to one or more unstressed extrametrical syllables at the beginning of a line.[5]
On-beat and off-beat
In typical Western music
4 time, counted as "1 2 3 4, 1 2 3 4...", the first beat of the bar (downbeat) is usually the strongest accent in 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 (bold denotes a stressed beat):
- 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 — ⓘ
- 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 — the stress here on the "on" beat ⓘ But one may syncopate that pattern and alternately stress the odd and even beats, respectively:
- 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 — the stress is on the "unexpected" or syncopated beat ⓘ
So "off-beat" is a musical term, commonly applied to
4 time.[10] Certain genres tend to emphasize the off-beat, where this is a defining characteristic of rock'n'roll and ska
Backbeat
A back beat, or backbeat, is a syncopated accentuation on the "off" beat. In a simple 4
4 rhythm 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 the Encyclopedia of Percussion.
Outside U.S. popular music, there are early recordings of music with a distinctive backbeat, such as the 1949 recording of Mangaratiba by Luiz Gonzaga in Brazil.[17]
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 "
In today's popular music the
Some songs, such as The Beatles' "Please Please Me" and "I Want to Hold Your Hand", The Knack's "Good Girls Don't" and Blondie's cover of The 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
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
Hyperbeat
Beat perception
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 of sensorimotor synchronization called '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 rhythmic motor response but 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]
Related concepts
- Tatum refers to a subdivision of a beat which represents the "time division that most highly coincides with note onsets".[33]
- Afterbeat refers to a percussion style where a strong accent is sounded on the second, third and fourth beats of the bar, following the downbeat.[13]
- In reggae music, the term one drop reflects the complete de-emphasis (to the point of silence) of the first beat in the cycle.
- James Brown's signature funk groove 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
References
- ISBN 0-486-25384-8.
- ISBN 0-13-049346-5.
- ISBN 0-226-11522-4.
- ISBN 9780313378461. Retrieved 22 November 2016.
- ^ a b Dogantan, Mine (2007). "Upbeat". Oxford Music Online. Grove Music Online. Archived from the original on May 16, 2008. Retrieved 2007-02-10.
- ISBN 9781135173050.
- ^ ISBN 0-634-02185-0.
- ISBN 0-7390-0260-0.
- ^ a b "Beat: Accentuation. (i) Strong and weak beats". Oxford Music Online. Grove Music Online. 2007. Archived from the original on May 16, 2008. Retrieved 2007-02-10.
- ^ "Off-beat". Oxford Music Online. Grove Music Online. 2007. Archived from the original on May 16, 2008. Retrieved 2007-02-10.
- ^ "Introduction to the 'Chop'", Anger, Darol. Strad (0039-2049); 10/01/2006, Vol. 117 Issue 1398, pp. 72–75.
- ISBN 9780739034712.
- ^ a b "Backbeat". Oxford Music Online. Grove Music Online. 2007. Archived from the original on May 16, 2008. Retrieved February 10, 2007.
- ISBN 9781317747680.
- ^ Beck (2013), p. 324.
- ^ "The Ultimate Jazz Archive - Set 17/42", Discogs.com. Accessed August 6, 2014.
- ^ "Mangaratiba - Luiz Gonzaga". YouTube. Archived from the original on 2021-12-21.
- ^ ISBN 1-4234-0818-7.
- ^ 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.
- ^ "Riding the Rails to Stardom - The Maddox Brothers and Rose", NPR News. Accessed August 6, 2014.
- ^ "The Maddox Bros & Rose". Rockabilly Hall of Fame. Archived from the original on 3 July 2011. Retrieved June 29, 2011.
- ^ ISBN 978-0-472-03470-3.
- ^ New Harvard Dictionary of Music (1986: 216). Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- ^ )
- ISBN 978-0028721910
- ^ Grahn, J. A., & Brett, M. (2007). Rhythm and beat perception in motor areas of the brain. Journal of cognitive neuroscience, 19(5), 893-906.
- ^ 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.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Iversen, J. R., & Balasubramaniam, R. (2016). Synchronization and temporal processing. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 8, 175-180.
- ^ Grahn, J. A. (2012). Neural mechanisms of rhythm perception: current findings and future perspectives. Topics in cognitive science, 4(4), 585-606.
- ^ 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.
- ^ Zentner, M., & Eerola, T. (2010). Rhythmic engagement with music in infancy. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 107(13), 5768-5773.
- ^ Jehan, Tristan (2005). "3.4.3 Tatum grid". Creating Music By Listening (Ph.D.). MIT.
- ^ Pareles, Jon (2006-12-25). "James Brown, the 'Godfather of Soul', Dies at 73". The New York Times. Retrieved 2007-01-10. According to The 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-four backbeat to one-two-three-four. 'I changed from the upbeat to the downbeat,' Mr. Brown said in 1990. 'Simple as that, really.'"
- ^ Gross, T. (1989). "Maceo Parker: The Hardest Working Sideman". Fresh Air. WHYY-FM/National Public Radio. Retrieved January 22, 2007. According to Maceo 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.
- ^ 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. Retrieved January 21, 2007.
Further reading
- de Momigny, Jérôme-Joseph (1821). La seule vraie théorie de la musique. Paris.
- Riemann, Hugo (1884). Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik. Hamburg: D. Rahter.
- Lussy, Mathis (1903). L'anacrouse dans la musique moderne. Paris: Heugel.
- ISBN 0-393-09767-6.