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Beat (music)
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A beat is the basic time unit within much Western music; for example, each tick sounded by a metronome would correspond to a beat. More technically, "the beat is the pulse of the mensural level", also known as the beat level, the metric level at which pulses are heard as the basic unit–"the denominator of the meter signature," admitting compound meters. Depending on the context, beat may denote:
This article concerns itself with the first two meanings.
music is characterised by a sequence of stressed and unstressed beats (often called "strong" and "weak") organised into a meter and partially indicated by a time signature, the speed of which is determined by a tempo.
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Encyclopedia
A beat is the basic time unit within much Western music; for example, each tick sounded by a metronome would correspond to a beat. More technically, "the beat is the pulse of the mensural level", also known as the beat level, the metric level at which pulses are heard as the basic unit–"the denominator of the meter signature," admitting compound meters. Depending on the context, beat may denote:
- the onset of the corresponding time unit, a point in time, the very moment when the metronome ticks;
- the complete time interval between two consecutive taps, so to say;
- in popular music, the whole sequence of individual beats (in the sense of meter, rhythm, groove, or riddim);
- in hip hop music, the entire instrumental, non-vocal portion of the song.
This article concerns itself with the first two meanings.
Beat
Much music is characterised by a sequence of stressed and unstressed beats (often called "strong" and "weak") organised into a meter and partially indicated by a time signature, the speed of which is determined by a tempo. In the context of a time signature, the term "beat" most often refers to the bottom number — so in 3/4, most people would consider the beat to be the 4; that is, a quarter-note, or crotchet. However, in 6/8 the dotted quarter note gets the beat rather than the eighth, for example. Musicians typically find that mentally counting a regular series of beats enables them to keep synchronised even if the music is not characterised by regular rhythm.
Metric levels faster than the beat level are division levels, and slower levels are multiple levels.
A hyperbeat is one unit of hypermeter, generally a measure, as is to a hypermeasure what a beat is to a measure.
Beat types
Downbeat
The downbeat is the impulse that occurs at the beginning of a bar in measured music. It is typically is the first beat of a measure in music. Its name derives from the downward stroke of the director or conductor's baton at the start of each measure.
Upbeat
An upbeat is an unaccented beat or beats that occur before the first beat of a following measure. In other words, this is an impulse in a measured rhythm that immediately precedes, and hence anticipates, the downbeat, which is the strongest of such impulses.
It is also an anticipatory note or succession of notes occurring before the first barline of a piece, sometimes referred to as an ‘upbeat figure’, section or phrase. An alternative expression for "upbeat figure" is "anacrusis" (from Greek. ana: "up towards" and krousis: "to strike"; Fr. anacrouse). This term was borrowed from poetry where it refers to one or more unstressed extrametrical syllables at the beginning of a line.
Backbeat
In music of duple time, the back beat refers to the even beats of the bar.
Off-beat
The Off-beat is a musical term commonly applied to rhythms that emphasize the weak beats of a bar. The downbeat can never be the off-beat because it is the strongest beat in 4/4 time.
See also
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