Beat (music)

Metric levels: beat level shown in middle with division

levels above and multiple levels below.

In music and music theory, the beat is the

basic unit of time, the pulse (regularly
repeating event), of the mensural level[1] (or
beat 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 musician counts while
performing, though in practice this may be
technically incorrect (often the first
multiple level). In popular use, beat can
refer to a variety of related concepts,
including pulse, tempo, meter, specific
rhythms, and groove.

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.

Metric levels faster than the beat level are

division levels, and slower levels are
multiple levels. Beat has always been an
important part of music. Some music
genres such as funk will in general de-
emphasize the beat, while other such as
disco emphasize the beat to accompany
dance.[3]

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 duple meter, music
where three beats are combined is in triple
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, 2/2,
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 into 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

Beginning of Bach's BWV 736, with upbeat (anacrusis)

in red. Play (help·info)

The downbeat is the first beat of the bar,

i.e. number 1. The upbeat is the last beat
in the previous bar which immediately
precedes, and hence anticipates, the
downbeat.[4] Both terms correspond to the
direction taken by the hand of a conductor.
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.[5]
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.[4]

On-beat and off-beat

Off-beat or backbeat pattern, popular on snare drum[6]
play (help·info)

"Skank" guitar rhythm[7] Play (help·info). Often

referred to as "upbeats", in parallel with upstrokes.

In typical Western music 44 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".[8]

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 — play eighth notes and
bass drum alone (help·info)
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4—the stress here on the
"on" beat play (help·info) 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
play (help·info)

So "off-beat" is a musical term, commonly

applied to syncopation that emphasizes
the weak even beats of a bar, as opposed
to the usual on-beat. This is a fundamental
technique of African polyrhythm that
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".[8] The downbeat can never be the off-
beat because it is the strongest beat in 44
time.[9] Certain genres tend to emphasize
the off-beat, where this is a defining
characteristic of rock'n'roll and Ska music.

Backbeat

Back beat[10][11] Play (help·info)

"It's got a backbeat, you can't lose it" – Chuck Berry,
"Rock and Roll Music"

A back beat, or backbeat, is a syncopated

accentuation on the "off" beat. In a simple
4 rhythm these are beats 2 and 4.[12]
4

"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.[13] An early
record with an emphasised back beat
throughout was "Good Rockin' Tonight" by
Wynonie Harris in 1948.[14] Although
drummer Earl Palmer claimed the honor
for "The Fat Man" by Fats Domino in 1949,
which he played on, saying he adopted it
from the final "shout" or "out" chorus
common in Dixieland jazz, urban
contemporary gospel was stressing the
back beat much earlier with hand-clapping
and tambourines. There is a hand-clapping
back beat on "Roll 'Em Pete" by Pete
Johnson and Big Joe Turner, recorded in
1938. A distinctive back beat can be heard
on "Back Beat Boogie" by Harry James
And His Orchestra, recorded in late
1939.[15] Other early recorded examples
include the final verse of "Grand Slam" by
Benny Goodman in 1942 and some
sections of The Glenn Miller Orchestra's "
(I've Got A Gal In) Kalamazoo", while
amateur direct-to-disc recordings of
Charlie Christian jamming at Minton's
Playhouse around the same time have a
sustained snare-drum back-beat on the
hottest choruses.

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.[16]
Delayed backbeat (last eighth note in each measure)
as in funk music[17] play (help·info)

Slap bass executions on the backbeat are

found in styles of country western music
of the 1930s, and the late '40s early '50s
music of Hank Williams reflected a return
to strong backbeat accentuation as part of
the honky tonk style of country.[18] In the
mid-1940s "hillbilly" musicians the
Delmore Brothers were 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. Similarly Fred Maddox's
characteristic backbeat, a slapping bass
style, helped drive a rhythm that came to
be known as rockabilly, one of the early
forms of rock and roll.[19] Maddox had
used this style as early as 1937.[20]

In today's popular music the snare drum is

typically used to play the backbeat
pattern.[6] Early funk music often delayed
one of the backbeats so as "to give a 'kick'
to the [overall] beat".[17]

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.[21] In a double backbeat, one of
the off beats is played as two eighth notes
rather than one quarter note.[21]

Cross-beat
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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).[22]

Neal, Jocelyn (2000). Neal, Jocelyn;

Wolfe, Charles K.; Akenson, James E.
(eds.). Songwriter's Signature, Artist's
Imprint: The Metric Structure of a Country
Song. Country Music Annual 2000.
Lexington, KY: University Press of
Kentucky. p. 115. ISBN 0-8131-0989-2.

Hyperbeat
A hyperbeat is one unit of hypermeter,
generally a measure. "Hypermeter is meter,
with all its inherent characteristics, at the
level where measures act as beats."[23][24]

Related concepts

Hypermeter: 4 beat measure, 4 measure

hypermeasure, and 4 hypermeasure verses.
Hyperbeats in red.
Tatum refers to a subdivision of a beat
which represents the "time division that
most highly coincides with note
onsets".[25]
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.[12]
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.[26][27][28]

See also
Mensural notation

References
1. Berry, Wallace (1976/1986). Structural
Functions in Music, p. 349. ISBN 0-
486-25384-8.
2. Winold, Allen (1975). "Rhythm in
Twentieth-Century Music", Aspects of
Twentieth-Century Music, p. 213. With,