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Beat (music)

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.

For other uses, see beat music, beat (acoustics), drum beat, and beat (disambiguation).

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:


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.[4]

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 — ⓘ

play eighth notes and bass drum alone

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:

play

1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 — the stress is on the "unexpected" or syncopated beat ⓘ

play

In typical Western music 4
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):


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".[9] The downbeat can never be the off-beat because it is the strongest beat in 4
4 time.[10] Certain genres tend to emphasize the off-beat, where this is a defining characteristic of rock'n'roll and ska music.

Beat perception[edit]

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]

refers to a subdivision of a beat which represents the "time division that most highly coincides with note onsets".[33]

Tatum

Afterbeat refers to a style where a strong accent is sounded on the second, third and fourth beats of the bar, following the downbeat.[13]

percussion

In music, the term one drop reflects the complete de-emphasis (to the point of silence) of the first beat in the cycle.

reggae

'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]

James Brown

Mensural notation

(1821). La seule vraie théorie de la musique. Paris.

de Momigny, Jérôme-Joseph

(1884). Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik. Hamburg: D. Rahter.

Riemann, Hugo

Lussy, Mathis (1903). . Paris: Heugel.

L'anacrouse dans la musique moderne

(1968). Musical Form and Musical Performance. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0-393-09767-6.

Cone, Edward T.