I suppose that all mainstream music in America has rhythm.
How does the beat in music affect you? Does it cause you to tap your foot, bob you head, or dance a little bit? Does it do more than the obvious? Why do businesses use carefully selected music to help accomplish their purposes? The beat in music can be followed in a quiet way or it can be brought to varied levels of volume and sound with percussion instruments, like cymbals, drums, tambourines, shakers, and so on.
Even the guitar is considered a rhythm instrument.
Because of my lifelong interest and involvement with music started out with rock-n-roll, this is a focus on the rock beat.
In discussing the rock beat we need to have a basic understanding of what it actually is.
Music is said to have originated with the human heart beat and the pace of walking.
The rock beat is also known as the back-beat and the syncopated beat.
There are other names, as well.
Music can have some different rhythmic timings, like 3/4 time or 4/4 time.
There are others, but for simplicity I will focus on the basic 4/4 time.
4/4 time means that each measure of music has 4 beats and each beat is notated with a musical quarter note.
A whole song in 4/4 time is divided up into measures with each having four beats.
The length of the notes correspond to the beats per measure.
A whole note lasts for 4 beats, a half note lasts for 2 beats (half a measure), a quarter note lasts for 1 beat (one forth of a measure), and so on.
Through the years I have collected materials and quotes from books, quotes, newspaper and magazine articles, and actual studies on the rock beat.
In this series of articles I will cite some of them.
There will be testimonials by rock musicians and what they have said about this beat, sources will musical truths about rhythm and beat, scientific research, and observations made about some of the effects of rock music.
In my next article, we will begin to look at some more details about the rock beat and what it is.
Rhythmically, Dexter Cabbott