Back beat
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- This article is about musical beats. For the film about The Beatles, see Backbeat (film).
In music a back beat (also backbeat, or up-beat)) is any of the even "beats" (quarter beats 2 and 4) as opposed to the odd downbeats, (quarter beats 1 and 3). That is, counting out a simple 4/4 rhythm, 1 2 3 4, the 1 and 3 are down beats and the 2 and 4 are upbeats. The up and down refer to movements of the conductor's baton.
The name back beat refers to the common practice of backing the hand or drumstick away from the drum on the even beats in Classical music. In comparison, modern popular music uses the back beat to create tension. The back beat is now used in virtually all forms of popular music.
In popular music, back beat refers to a percussion style with a strong accent is sounded on the second and fourth beats of the bar, most often from striking a snare drum. This is the simplest form of syncopation, and the tension between the normally much stronger first and third beats (downbeats) and the backbeats creates interest.
The effect can be easily simulated by repeatedly counting to four while alternating strong and weak beats:
- 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 --"expected" or downbeat version
- 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4 -- syncopated or upbeat version
While many pieces of music are syncopated in this way, in popular music the term back beat is usually reserved for strong, highly accented 2 and 4 beats, almost always on the snare drum.
The style emerged in the late 1940s in rhythm and blues recordings, and is one of the defining characteristics of rock and roll and is used in virtually all contemporary popular music, bossa nova being a notable exception. Drummer Earl Palmer states the first record with nothing but back beat was "The Fat Man" by Fats Domino in 1949, which he played on. Palmer says he adopted it from the final shout or out chorus common in Dixieland jazz.
While "The Fat Man" may have been the first Top 40 song with a back beat all the way through, black gospel music was stressing the back beat much earlier with hand-clapping and tambourine. Other earlier examples of back beat include the final verse of "Grand Slam" by Benny Goodman in 1942. There is a hand-clapping back beat on "Roll 'em Pete" by Pete Johnson and Big Joe Turner, recorded in 1939.
In Reggae music, the term One Drop reflects the complete de-emphasis (to the point of silence) of the first beat in the cycle. In contrast, James Brown is famous for his insistence on emphasizing what he called the One as a necessary cue for dancers.
See also: Anacrusis
es:Contrapunto
