Talk:Beat (music)

I changed "denominator" to "bottom number" is the bit referring to time signature -- the link to denominator would be utterly unhelpful to readers looking for info on time signature, which isn't really a fraction anyhow. Or am I misinformed? Mindspillage 18:57, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

Thanks, you're right. Hyacinth 20:08, 29 Jun 2004 (UTC)

i added a link to the drum beat article i just created. do you think that article and this one are redundant? it's intended mostly to list links to different drum beat articles.

--Macho 25 April 2005

Sorry, but "confusing" is an understatement.

"A beat is a pulse on the beat level, the metric level at which pulses are heard as the basic unit."

Oh! I see  ;)

I think anyone who could understand much of the language in this article wouldn't need to be looking in wikipedia for the information in the first place. And linking every technical term to another wikipedia page, without any local explanation, really doesn't help much. On another note (no pun intended), I always thought the top number indicated beats (as in waltz = 3/4 time = 3 beats per measure). Trying to unravel this mystery was the reason for coming here.--220.235.129.159 16:07, 26 September 2007 (UTC)Reply

I agree with you. It is clear that musicians use the word stress in a way that is in variance to the way poets and grammarians use stress. The main article could be improved if it were written with attention to the physical properties of a musical note. Musicians should not attempt to import terminology more properly suited to linguistics as it implies that the words are interchangeable. From reading the main article, I am led to believe stress is actually the amplitude of the note, confined to an acceptable degree of stepping, associated with the notes of the song taken as a whole.

In any case, the main article could be improved by a link to a site that deals with beat in a laboratory setting, perhaps with sound spectrographs so that those of us who are slightly hard of hearing can see what is actually being talked about, and supposedly demonstrated.198.177.27.28 (talk) 06:36, 27 May 2008 (UTC)Reply

Hi. Are there backbeats in a 3/4 measure? 128.100.216.170 (talk) 18:38, 9 May 2012 (UTC)Reply

"Backbeat" refers not only to the beats stressed, but to the pattern in which those beats are stressed. I would assume then that in 3/4 there are off or upbeats, but not a backbeat. Hyacinth (talk) 06:36, 3 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Why would the "Upbeat" section need rewriting? Hyacinth (talk) 16:12, 2 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

Not sure how it looked like 5 years ago, but it still felt a bit strange to me today. (There are some easy stylistic issues, and some more interesting ones, too.)

1. '... i.e. number 1' should be '... counted as "1"' (it would be less awkward and more consistent with the style of the Off-beat section).

2. All that excessive bold (and italic) emphasis there doesn't seem to add much (as the MoS also suggests), and there are no such bolding cases elsewhere in the entire article anyway (apart from the subject nouns in some sections; BTW, the subject nouns in this particular section are italicized instead... Or, looking more closely, only "upbeat" is, the other one ("downbeat") is, again, bold).

3. That bold-emphasis of "previous bar" felt not only redundant (distracting, actually) but also slightly confusing: since every "last beat of a bar" seems obviously "previous" to the next "first beat of a bar" anyway (apart from the last one), that extra emphasis (esp. accompanied with the general insecurity I've grown since I've started reading all sorts of unnecessarily complicated, often self-indulging, and sometimes simply contradicting material in music theory everywhere) made me second-guess: is there some arcane secret here again, which I'm supposed to understand beyond what appears to be trivial? Am I assuming something I shouldn't, not assuming something I should, or is this just another example of the usual "alchemy" of music-theory? ;)

4. The other (unnecessary/inconsistent) bolds, just for completeness: "immediately precedes", "translate its effect", "The upbeat is the last beat", while "The downbeat is the first beat". Contrast this with the unstyled crusis (and anacrusis, "of a measure or a phrase") in the quote, a term Google thinks is a typo (even paired with "music")... (Note: the next paragraph does treat "anacrusis" as a new word requiring explanation, and properly quotes it accordingly -- I mean it would be proper if it hadn't been introduced already.)

5. BTW, talking of "crusis" and "anacrusis"... Why so much? In its current form that kinda hijacks the section and makes it feel like a strange niche detour of history and Greek etymology. Presumably, most visitors would prefer reading about practical significance and examples.

6. BTW/2, talking of examples: thickening the slight shadow of confusion, the given example looks like it's not the most common case, but a special one (which, BTW, would deserve to be treated separately, too): as it is, it appears to be a leading, "initial" upbeat, possibly preceding an entire phrase, or perhaps even the whole composition, unlike all the other "plain, regular" upbeats, which are just "the last beats" of all the other bars (preceding each subsequent downbeat). Or am I, indeed, misunderstanding the definition, which subtly tries to tell me that "not every last beat is an upbeat" (not considering the last bar, again, trivially), i.e. there is not necessarily an upbeat before every downbeat (not considering the first downbeat, again, trivially)? Well, if that's, indeed, the case, then boldfacing is definitely not the way to making it clear. ;) OTOH, if every preceding last beat is, indeed, an upbeat, then the example should not be a special case, undermining the understanding of the definition, but a very typical illustrative case, reinforcing its general meaning. (Note: not replacing the nice Bach example then, but in addition to it, denoting the important semantic difference.) Or, if there's some 3rd case, then the section clearly needs some rewording. (See also 8. about the status quo of general confusion around the terminology. :) )

7. A gentle hint about the difference between upbeat and offbeat would be nice, too, explicitly guiding the reader to the other section.

8. Googling a bit, there are (surprisingly) many (more-or-less) different definitions of these terms, esp. upbeat, out there, the differences ranging from nuances to utter contradiction/confusion, and also depending on genre, instrument, country/language etc. etc. Addressing this mess seems to be important. (An example from 1958 here, illustrating how this was already a problem even then. :) )

(Note: I didn't just edit, because the MoS prefers discussing first, and also because I wanted to answer that hanging question above. Also: I've been reading lots of music theory Wp. articles nowadays, and I did sense similar issues with clarity and (sometimes slightly blurred, and sometimes also a bit too "scholarly") focus (or style) elsewhere, too, so it appears to be symptomatic. Hence, I thought it'd be more useful to leave a detailed feedback than just a "silent" edit. Great, massive, and still immensely useful work though, Hyacinth, and whoever others might be concerned, thank you all!)

Sz. (talk) 01:23, 18 April 2019 (UTC)Reply

In modern [[pop music]], the term "beats" has been used to describe whole pieces of composed music.{{Citation needed|date=February 2011}} This is a distinct and separate use of the term from the way it is used traditionally as related only to the rhythmic element of music.

I removed the above as uncited and needing clarification. Hyacinth (talk) 00:39, 3 August 2014 (UTC)Reply

The parlance is standard for rap music, whereby the beat often means the "instrumental stream" [Mitchell Ohriner, Flow: The Rhythmic Voice in Rap Music (New York: OUP, 2019), p 16]. — Occurring (talk) 20:42, 11 December 2021 (UTC)Reply

I'm still confused about this.

For one thing, I'm unsure of how to interpret the first sentence of the article; specifically, how precisely the third part of the sentence ("the pulse (regularly repeating event)") relates to the rest of the sentence.

Second, I'm unsure of how to interpret the quote from Meyer and Cooper. Are they saying that only the accented pulses count as beats? If that's the case, isn't it a contradiction to refer to unaccented beats? Also, if beats are (certain) pulses "within a metric context", does this not contradict the first sentence in the article "Pulse (music)", which states that "the pulse consists of beats"? If beats are pulses ("within a metric context"), then how can pulses consist of beats? ZFT (talk) 22:47, 20 April 2020 (UTC)Reply

ZFT, the article is confusing, especially by including quotes from music theorists who may even assert what should be proper definitions, not necessarily how musicians employ the terms. Either way, the Wikipedia article ought to mainly summarize clearly, and place the quotes perhaps in footnotes. Though not a musician, I got letter grade A in an introductory course, taught by a working musician, on music theory at a regional university in the Northeast of America in 2018. We used Sumy Takesue, Music Fundamentals: A Balanced Approach, 2nd edn (New York: Routledge, 2013). In short, pulse and beats are abstract, are references. The pulse is a timeline, let us say, and a beat is a timepoint. So, strictly speaking, a beat is never heard. Heard is a note, played either at a beat, off beat, or across beats, why a note's symbol indicates time duration. The note's duration, like whole note or half note, explains how notes get treated alike beats.

The pulse, fundamental and ultimately abstract, is monotonous, as manifested by a metronome's tick, and delineates only each full beat—one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four, one, two, three, four—whereas rhythm is the total pattern of attack, possibly with stress, too, or else silence at each timepoint either on or between those full beats during a noteworthy timespan. Unstressed does not imply silent, but instead implies manner of play, subtler than stressed. In popular music's bar structure, beat #1 has primary stress, while beat #3 has secondary stress, whereas beats #2 and #4 are unstressed, an example of metre. But a rhythm may—and usually does—defy the metre. An expert defines rhythm versus metre indeed like so, but notes that this not the "technical meaning of the word rhythm" [Mike Goldsmith, Sound: A Very Short Introduction (New York: OUP, 2015), p 47]. I suspect that quoting only the most erudite sources offering esoteric meanings leads to similar confusion.

Syncopation occurs by attack off beat—between the full beats #1 and #2 and #3 and #4, and so at a timepoint of half beat, where and occurs in verbally counting "one and two and three" and such, or even a quarter beat or eighth beat—or by attack that stresses beats unconventionally. (One can see partial beats at Richard Sorce, Musicianship For The Contemporary Musician (Ronkonkoma, NY: Linus Learning, 2016), p 53.) Yet as to "unconventional" stress, backbeat syncopation—stressing beats #2 and #4—became common via rock & roll. And folk talk, meanwhile, tends to call "the beat" what music theory terms rhythm—the pattern of the attacks altogether, including any syncopation—whereas metre is the rhythm's backbone, a fairly cyclical foundation of stresses. Rhythm is exactly what's played. Metre is, for example, beat #1 primary stress, beat #3 secondary stress, and beats #2 and #4 unstressed. Beats, rather, are timepoints, whether they receive a note or a rest. — Occurring (talk) 21:58, 11 December 2021 (UTC)Reply

In the "On-beat and off-beat" section, clicking on the MIDI examples downloads them instead of playing them (tested in Firefox and Chrome). I tried switching from the audio template to the listen template, and that works perfectly, but it puts them on the side of the article instead of inline. Anybody have ideas on how to fix? Wikipedian192 (talk) 02:24, 23 May 2021 (UTC)Reply

  An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Upbeat and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 October 21#Upbeat until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 11:46, 21 October 2022 (UTC)Reply