A Study of

Clapping
on the
Backbeat

Ethan Hein

In 1993, the blues musician Taj Mahal gave a

solo concert at the Modernes Club in Bremen,
Germany. The concert was later released as the
album An Evening of Acoustic Music. Taj
begins to play "Blues with a Feeling," and the
audience enthusiastically claps along.
However, they do so on beats one and three,
not two and four like they are supposed to. Taj
immediately stops playing and says, "Wait,
wait, wait. Wait wait. This is schvartze [black]
music... zwei and fier, one TWO three FOUR,
okay?" He resumes the song, and the audience
continues to clap on the wrong beats. So he
stops again. "No, no, no, no. Everybody's like,
ONE, two, THREE, no no no. Classical music,
yes. Mozart, Chopin, okay? Tchaikovsky, right?
Vladimir Horowitz. ONE two THREE. But
schvartze music, one TWO three FOUR, okay?"
He starts yet again, and finally the audience
claps along correctly.

Research question
To what degree do people know
that they are supposed to clap on
the backbeat along with the
blues and music like it? Does
musical training or practice
correlate with knowledge of the
backbeat clapping convention?
Hypothesis
Clapping on the backbeat of
dance-oriented 4/4 rhythms
strongly correlates with musical
training and experience in music
of the African diaspora: jazz,
rock, blues, funk, R&B, hip-hop
and related styles. Clapping on
the backbeat correlates weakly
with training and experience in
other musical idioms.

Musical and rhythmic behavior in

humans creates a temporal
framework, collective emotionality,
a feeling of shared experience, and
cohesiveness to group activities and
ritualistic ceremonies (Bispham
2006). We see a shadow of musics
ancestral purpose when an audience
claps in unison at a concert.
Group clapping helps to unify the
audiences perception of the tactus,
the central pulse. Bodily movement
does not merely accompany
listening; it enhances our ability to
listen.
We use coordinated rhythmic movements both for literal physical mirroring and for
metaphorical mirroring, i.e. empathy. This socially mediated synchronization
explains why it matters to musicians which beats the audience claps on. Taj Mahal
found it distressing when his audience clapped wrong because it felt like a failure to
emotionally connect with them.

Syncopation is a crucial method of generating rhythmic suspense and drama.

We can consider rhythms to be consonant and dissonant depending on
their degree of metrical tension. Temperley (2010) defines syncopation as
rhythmic events that are improbable by the norms of classical common-practice
rhythm. Syncopation violates the usual rhythmic hierarchy, and "represents the
aspect of rhythmic complexity that does not relate to repetitiveness. By this
measure, current popular music is extraordinarily rhythmically complex, even
though it may be simple harmonically and structurally (Temperley 1999).

We can determine the metric salience of each event in a rhythmic pattern by

recursively breaking down a musical pattern (with an initially specified length)
into subpatterns of equal length. The more subdivisions it takes to reach a
given event, the lower its metrical salience. In 4/4 time, the downbeat is the
most salient position, followed by beat three. It would seem natural to clap on
the strongest, most salient beatindeed, this is what many untrained listeners
do. However, the Afro-Caribbean core of American popular/vernacular music
asks us to accent the less metrically salient backbeats instead.

Background on the backbeat

A backbeat rhythm places percussive accents on the weak beats, typically the
second and fourth beats in 4/4 time. Accented backbeats are most commonly
played on the snare drum, but can be performed on any instrument.

The backbeat originated in Dixieland jazz, country and gospel music. It has
since become ubiquitous throughout American and global popular music.
While accenting weak beats was a common device in American popular
music throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the term backbeat
did not enter common usage until the advent of rock and roll in the early
1950sappropriately enough, since the backbeat is a foundational
component of rock.

The dominance of the backbeat is a significant factor in the broader Africanization

of American music. You can hear the vestiges of traditional West African music
that survived slavery in the percussion-heavy, improvisationally oriented and
shouted/chanted music on every pop radio station. Generally speaking, African
music is rhythmically complex and harmonically static, a neat inverse of Europes
harmonically rich but rhythmically unsophisticated tradition. American musical
history is largely shaped by the collision between these two musical cultures,
along with contributions from immigrant groups and international influences.

In spite of the backbeat's popularity, it is widely

misunderstood. The tangled history of Americas racial
and class politics may provide an explanation. The
backbeat originated in the music of marginalized groups:
African-Americans, poor rural whites, and immigrants.
Their music styles have been regarded throughout their
history to be disreputable, low-class, primitive and
barbaric, even perceived as undermining the moral fabric
of society entirely. Funk in particular threatens
Americans more puritanical instincts, due to its
associations with bodily functions and sexual odors.
Terms of praise among funk musicians include dirty, filthy,
raw, stanky and nasty. These bodily metaphors are
intrinsic to funks appeal, particularly its ability to inspire
audience participation and dancing, but a great many
Americans find them anxiety-producing, even threatening.
Furthermore, funks overt Afrocentrism provokes racial
anxieties that have only been heightened by hip-hop. The
jazz drummer Max Roach is quoted by Greenwald (2002):
"The thing that frightened people about hip-hop was that
they heard rhythmrhythm for rhythm's sake."

As long as Americans devalue the

bodily intelligence represented by the
backbeat, they will naturally continue
to misunderstand and demean it.
McClary (1989) argues that it requires
greater skill and musicality to produce
the groove in a dance-oriented Earth,
Wind & Fire song than to generate
the self-denying, difficult rhythms"
in modern classical music. "One need
only observe professional classical
performers attempting to capture
anything approaching swing (forget
about funk!) to appreciate how truly
difficult this apparently immediate
music is. We may hope that backbeatbased dance music will continue to
find the acceptance and understanding
that has thus far failed to match its
popularity.

Procedure
Participants filled out questionnaires
asking them to self-evaluate their degree of
sophistication with African diasporic music
and music generally. They then clapped to
a series of breakbeats representative of
contemporary dance music. The beats were
looped continuously in Ableton Live 8.
Participants were told to clap along in
whatever way they felt to make the most
musical sense. Their performances were
recorded via a Macbook Pros built-in
microphone into Live. The experimenter
stopped recording when the participant
was observed to be clapping in a stable
pattern. The drum loops were presented in
a mostly random order, with exception of
the the most complex break. This was
presented last, out of concern that
participants would be discouraged by it.

Methodology
The twenty-two study participants were
New York City residents between
twenty and forty years old, spanning a
broad variety of nationalities and
cultural backgrounds. Most had formal
musical experience and training, some
up to the professional level, but effort
was made to include non-musicians as
well. The stimuli were breakbeats
chosen on the basis of their familiarity to
even casual listeners of contemporary
backbeat-driven African diasporic
music. All are in 4/4 time at medium to
fast dance tempi. Their instrumentation
is limited to standard drum kit, except
for Take Me to the Mardi Gras, which
adds bells and found sounds. The
breakbeats are listed below in order of
increasing complexity.

Billie Jean

This breakbeat consists of the opening measures of a prominent single from

one of the most popular recordings in history, Michael Jackson's 1982 album
Thriller. Leon "Ndugu" Chancler's simple, powerful drumming combines
with an unusual drum recording technique to produce an instantly
recognizable sound. Nearly all participants identified the source of this beat
immediately.

Impeach the President

This two-bar drum pattern opens a little-known 1973 song by the Honey
Drippers. Despite the source recordings obscurity, the breakbeat is one of
the most common samples in hip-hop. It has appeared in songs by Audio
Two, Eric B. and Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Biz Markie, Slick Rick, Nice &
Smooth, De La Soul, Mary J. Blige, Digable Planets, Notorious B.I.G. and the
Wu-Tang Clan, among many others.

Take Me to the Mardi Gras

The opening to Bob James 1975 instrumental version of Paul Simon's song
"Take Me to the Mardi Gras" combines a funk beat, an agog bell pattern
and some sampled radio chatter. This break is best known as the basis for
"Peter Piper" by Run-DMC, and has also been sampled by LL Cool J, the
Beastie Boys, Missy Elliott, Common and the Wu-Tang Clan. It is distinctive
in its blend of traditional Afro-Caribbean rhythm, American funk and
musique concrte.

The Funky Drummer

"The Funky Drummer Parts One and Two" by James Brown and the JBs,
recorded in 1969, was not well known until the first generation of hip-hop
producers discovered Clyde Stubblefield's drum break. In 1986, Polydor
released In The Jungle Groove, a compilation featuring the hard-edged,
open-ended grooves preferred by hip-hop listeners. It was the first album
release of "The Funky Drummer Parts One and Two" and also included a
sampling-friendly remix of the break, "Funky Drummer (Bonus Beat
Reprise)." The break has since appeared in uncountably many hip-hop,
dance, pop and rock songs.

Amen, Brother

There are few sounds more important to electronic dance music than
Gregory Cylvester Coleman's drum break in "Amen Brother" by the
Winstons, an obscure B-side to the minor hit "Color Him Father." Since the
Amen break began to appear in hip-hop songs in the early 1980s, it has
become ubiquitous throughout all styles of electronic dance music. In
particular, the beats in the Drum n Bass genre consist almost entirely of
reshuffled and altered versions of the Amen break. The break has crossed
over into the popular mainstream as well, even appearing in television
theme songs and commercials.

The questionnaires were adapted from Mllensiefen, D., Gingras, B., Stewart,
L. & Musil, J. (2011). The Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI):
Technical Report and Documentation v0.9. London: Goldsmiths, University of
London. Unless otherwise specified, question response choices were:
1. Completely Disagree
5. Agree
2. Strongly Disagree
6. Strongly Agree
3. Disagree
7. Completely Agree
4. Neither Agree nor Disagree
For the purposes of the questionnaire, African diasporic music includes but is
not limited to the following genres and their subgenres.
Blues
Gospel (spirituals)
Jazz (ragtime, swing, bebop, free/avant-garde, fusion, Latin, bossa)
Country (bluegrass, zydeco)
R&B (doo-wop, soul, funk, disco)
Rock (rockabilly, punk, indie, metal)
Afro-Caribbean (son, rumba, salsa and merengue, calypso, soca, etc.)
Reggae (ska, dub, dancehall)
Electronic dance music (electro, house, techno, drum n bass, dubstep, etc.)
Hip-Hop

African Diasporic Musical Sophistication Assessment

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.

I often listen to African diasporic music as a main

activity.
I consider one or more forms of African diasporic
music to be a central part of my identity.
Certain pieces of African diasporic music can send
shivers down my spine.
I use African diasporic music to calm myself when
I'm stressed.
I'm intrigued by musical styles I'm not familiar with
and want to find out more.
I generally tap or clap along when listening to
African diasporic music.
I think that African diasporic music is very important
for setting the atmosphere of an occasion.
I can compare and discuss differences between two
performances or versions of the same piece of African
diasporic music.
I can clap along to music in a group situation without
having to follow other people's lead.
I have been complimented for my talents as a musical
performer in one or more African diasporic styles.
I can tell when people sing or play out of time with
the beat.
The ability to play African diasporic music is a very
valuable skill.
I have no difficulty in distinguishing between African
diasporic musical genres.
African diasporic music is an addiction for me - I
couldn't live without it.

15. I often read or search the internet for things related to

African diasporic music.
16. I often pick particular African diasporic music to motivate or
excite me.
17. I have engaged in regular daily practice of African diasporic
music on an instrument or vocally for this many years:
a.
0
e.
45
b.
1
f.
69
c.
2
g.
10 or more
d. 3
18. I have had formal training in an African diasporic style on
any instrument (including voice) for this many years:
e.
35
a.
0
f.
69
b.

g.
10 or more
c.
1
d.

19. I listen attentively to African diasporic music for this

amount of time per day:
a.
0 - 15 minutes
e.
2 hours
b.
15 - 30 minutes f.
2 - 3 hours
c.
30 - 60 minutes g.
4 hours or more
d. 60 - 90 minutes
20. I have attended this many live African diasporic music
events as an audience member in the past twelve months:
a.
0
e.
46
b.
1
f.
7 10
c.
2
g.
11 or more
d. 3

General Musical Sophistication Assessment

1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.

9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.

I often listen to any kind of music as a main activity.

I consider one or more forms of any kind of music
to be a central part of my identity.
Certain pieces of music can send shivers down my
spine.
I use any kind of music to calm myself when I'm
stressed.
If I hear two tones played one after another, I have
no trouble judging which of them is higher.
I generally tap or clap along when listening to any
music with a beat.
I think that music in general is very important for
setting the atmosphere of an occasion.
I can compare and discuss differences between two
performances or versions of the same piece of any
kind of music.
I can sing or play music from memory.
I have been complimented for my talents as a
musical performer in any style.
I can tell when people sing or play out of tune.
The ability to play any kind of music is a very
valuable skill.
I have no difficulty in distinguishing between
musical genres.
Music of any kind is an addiction for me - I couldn't
live without it.

15. I often read or search the internet for things related to

any kind of music.
16. I often pick particular music to motivate or excite me.
17. I have engaged in regular daily practice of any kind of
music on an instrument or vocally for this many years:
a.
0
e.
45
b.
1
f.
69
c.
2
g.
10 or more
d. 3
18. I have had formal training in any style of music on
any instrument (including voice) for this many years:
e.
35
a.
0
f.
69
b.

g.
10 or more
c.
1
d.

19. I listen attentively to any kind of music for this amount

of time per day:
a.
0 - 15 minutes
e.
2 hours
b.
15 - 30 minutes f.
2 - 3 hours
c.
30 - 60 minutes g.
4 hours or more
d. 60 - 90 minutes
20. I have attended this many live music events of any kind
as an audience member in the past twelve months:
a.
0
e.
46
b.
1
f.
7 10
c.
2
g.
11 or more
d. 3

Results
This image shows Take Me to the Mardi Gras and the first few recorded responses.
The top waveform is the stimulus. The tracks below show three participants
clapping on the backbeats, followed by one clapping on the strong beats.

Most participants interpreted the instructions to mean that they should

simply clap to the beat. A minority used more expressive and complex
clapping patterns, or settled into haphazard and idiosyncratic patterns. Two
participants results were not used, as their clapping did not ever settle into
distinguishable patterns.
The following five figures display aggregate clapping results for each
stimulus. The vertical axes show total number of claps recorded across all
participants.
The Funky Drummer
20!
18!
16!
14!
12!
10!
8!
6!
4!
2!
0!
1

Impeach the President

18!
16!
14!
12!
10!
8!
6!
4!
2!
0!
1

Take Me to the Mardi Gras

20!
18!
16!
14!
12!
10!
8!
6!
4!
2!
0!
1

The majority of
participants clapped
consistently on the
backbeats. Contrary to
expectation, the beat to
receive the next most
claps was not the
downbeat; rather, beat
three received slightly
more claps. This may
indicate a slight
preference for the
hyper-backbeat,
considering a measure
to be two bars of four.

Amen, Brother
16!
14!
12!
10!
8!
6!
4!
2!
0!
1

Billie Jean
18!
16!
14!
12!
10!
8!
6!
4!
2!
0!

As expected, the Amen break

produced the most variation
in clapping patterns, since its
high degree of syncopation
tended to throw participants
off. Surprisingly, of the
remaining stimuli, Billie Jean
showed the most variation in
responses, in spite of its
simplicity. Several participants
reported being distracted by
the recordings familiarity;
they said that they were
waiting for the bassline and
synthesizer stabs to enter, and
were attempting to clap to
those other patterns.

This table shows participants musical sophistication and backbeat

clapping scores. We expected participants with the largest ratio of
African diasporic to general musical sophistication to have the
highest backbeat clapping scores. This was indeed largely the
case, though there was more variation than expected.
Subject
number
7593
2423
3926
2524
6147
7767
2415
7098
849
7155
285
2683
5094
2982
675
4378
9876
5406
2630
5769
Mean
Standard
Deviation

African diasporic
musical sophistication
score
107
105
110
58
68
77
104
105
89
55
107
106
96
100
105
86
87
87
49
37

General musical
sophistication
score
95
99
105
57
67
76
103
107
92
57
112
111
101
107
117
96
99
115
95
90

Ratio of African
diasporic to general
Backbeat
sophistication
clapping
scores
score
1.13
5
1.06
10
1.05
10
1.02
10
1.01
8
1.01
6
1.01
7
0.98
10
0.97
9
0.96
1
0.96
10
0.95
3
0.95
10
0.93
10
0.90
10
0.90
10
0.88
6
0.76
8
0.52
1
0.41
3

86.90

95.05

0.92

7.35

22.33

17.80

0.17

3.20

A comparison of
participants musical
sophistication scores
to their backbeat
clapping scores shows
significant variation
from the mean. The
noisiness of the
results is most likely
the result of the
questionnaires
intrinsic subjectivity.

Subject
number
7593
2423
3926
2524
6147
7767
2415
7098
849
7155
285
2683
5094
2982
675
4378
9876
5406
2630
5769
Mean
Standard
Deviation

Ratio of African
diasporic musical
sophistication score to
backbeat clapping score
21.40
10.50
11.00
5.80
8.50
12.83
14.86
10.50
9.89
55.00
10.70
35.33
9.60
10.00
10.50
8.60
14.50
10.88
49.00
12.33

Ratio of general
musical
sophistication score
to backbeat clapping
score
19.00
9.90
10.50
5.70
8.38
12.67
14.71
10.70
10.22
57.00
11.20
37.00
10.10
10.70
11.70
9.60
16.50
14.38
95.00
30.00

16.59

20.25

13.64

21.35

A graph showing lines of best fit through scatter plots of the compared musical
sophistication and backbeat clapping scores reveals an unambiguous positive
correlation between both African diasporic and general musical sophistication scores
and backbeat clapping scores. Furthermore, as expected, the correlation is stronger
for African diasporic musical sophistication than for general musical sophistication.
African Diasporic Music Sophistication Score
vs Backbeat Clapping Score

General Music Sophistication Score

vs Backbeat Clapping Score

10!
9!

Backbeat clapping scores!

8!
7!
6!
5!
4!
3!
2!
1!
0!
0!

20!

40!

60!

80!

Musical sophistication scores!

100!

120!

140!

Discussion
Three participants gave particularly interesting results. Subject 2524 self-reported
the lowest general musical aptitude of any participant, yet clapped consistently
and strongly on the backbeat in all five trials. In an informal discussion after the
experiment had concluded, she described her upbringing in a black church in
Brooklyn. In this context, she experienced the backbeat as the only natural place
to clap. She expressed surprise upon learning that clapping on strong beats is
quite common. Indeed, in the course of the conversation, she consistently used the
term off beat to refer to beats one and three, which, while technically incorrect,
is a testament to the depth of her internalization of the backbeat tradition.
On the opposite side of the spectrum, subject 2630 clapped clearly and confidently
on the strong beats in all five trials, the only participant to do so. Tellingly, her
ratio of African diasporic to general musical sophistication was the second lowest
of any participant. Even though her general musical sophistication score was
almost precisely equal to the median, her African diasporic sophistication score
was among the lowest of all participants. In a conversation after the experiment,
the participant described her most significant participatory music experience,
childhood piano lessons in the western classical music idiom.

Finally, subject 5769 was an interesting outlier. He is an accomplished tabla player in

the Hindustani classical tradition, but he has had little exposure to Western music, and
is almost totally unfamiliar with African diasporic music. He was the only participant
to have encountered all five breakbeats for the first time during the experiment, and
his clapping choices were totally idiosyncratic:
Billie Jean: and of two, and of four, i.e. the backbeats displaced half a beat.
Impeach the President: and of two, and of three.
Take Me to the Mardi Gras: a complex sixteenth-note pattern.
The Funky Drummer: and of three, four, and of four.
Amen, Brother: another complex sixteenth-note pattern.
It would be a fascinating
exercise to record him
improvising on the tabla
in reaction to these and
other breakbeats. In
addition to its
musicological value, it
would likely make an
enjoyable work of art.

Problems and challenges

The greatest limitation of the study lies in the method of quantifying musical
sophistication. This study likely understates the difference between the ratio of
African diasporic sophistication score to backbeat clapping score versus the ratio
of general musical sophistication score to backbeat score. African diasporic music
is a subset of music generally, not an oppositional category.
As mentioned in the Results section, the noisiness of the data is likely caused by
the participants subjective responses to the questionnaires. Reducing all of the
intricate complexities of a persons musical knowledge and experience to a single
number is an inherently problematic undertaking. The Goldsmiths Musical
Sophistication Index is as good a tool as one could ask for, but it still suffers from
the vagaries of subjective self-evaluation. Respondents may overvalue or
undervalue their abilities; they may use more or less stringent value scales to
evaluate themselves; they may interpret questions and instructions in unexpected
ways. The Goldsmiths survey seeks to compensate for these problems by asking a
great many questions with as much precision of language as possible. However,
the Goldsmiths surveys thoroughness poses a problem of its own, since filling it
out is quite time-consuming. The present experiment sacrifices a great deal of the
Goldsmiths surveys nuance in favor of a more manageably brief questionnaire.

Directions for further research

The experiment did not strictly compare clapping on the backbeat to clapping
on the strong beats; rather, it compared both of these categories to clapping
on every eighth note, or every quarter note, or some other combination of
beats. It would perhaps have been better to instruct participants to clap out a
steady beat, rather than allowing them to clap in whatever manner they
chose. However, in the interest of including non-musicians, it was ultimately
decided to keep the instructions open-ended. It would be interesting to see
whether a study restricting participants to strong beats or backbeats only
would strengthen or weaken the present studys findings.
Another intriguing line of research would be to test familiarity with other
customary clapping patterns, for example Afro-Cuban son clave. While this
pattern is not as familiar or ubiquitous as the backbeat, it is still a
foundational motif throughout African diasporic music. However, because
the pattern is more complex and subtle, it would likely be necessary to
restrict test subjects to musicians in order to obtain meaningful results.

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