I find myself really enjoy Perfect night. Which is a bit enigmatic to me, because none of its melody or other aspects are much outstanding, and I have no attached strings (gamer, band’s fan…). After a few re-listening, I found something interesting.
Context: I have little musical background, so bear with me. OK, I define ‘strong beats’ as the sounds “chak”, “chak” that appear in the majority of this song. Then, the stress of the lyrics fall outside of those strong beats:
I got all I need you know nothing else can beat / the way that I feel when I’m dancing with my girls Perfect energy yeah we flawless yeah we free
Instead, they fall in line with the weak beats. This is rare, I think, because most other songs synchronize lyrics stress with strong beats (examples abound, just pick a random one you have at hand). chatgpt says that this phenomenon is “syncopation”, which I doubt, because its examples don’t feel similar, and wiki says syncopation is about doing things off-beat. Well, Perfect night is almost always on-beat, just it’s the weak beats. So:
Is there a buzzword for this pattern? In either case, can you point me to some songs that employ the same mechanism?
What’s the instrument behind that “chak chak” sound? What’s responsible for the weak beats here? I’m quite interested in finding out which instruments make what sounds in a sample. If there’s a person capable of doing that, what job does s/he most likely have?
Is the overarching question (lyric stress timing relating to beats) something to do with the field of music theory?
I think this is what the OP is after. It’s not so much music theory (though that’s a part of it), as much as it is performance.
I play Celtic percussion, where rhythm is of utmost importance, and much of the time, it agrees with the normal accents: ONE-two-three-four TWO-two-three-four, or ONE-two TWO-two, or ONE-two-three-FOUR-five six TWO-two-three-FOUR-five-six, and so on.
But you can give the music a whole different feel if you can accent the off-beats (i.e. unaccented beats, such as one-TWO two-TWO). When appropriate, of course, not every tune is suitable for that. As an example, I’ll offer “And When I Die,” by Blood, Sweat, and Tears. Most of the latter part of the song (which is instrumental) emphasizes percussion on the off-beats.
A truism of sorts I tend to observe is that if you pick any style or tradition of music, they will develop two of the three. It seems that it is hard to get ones head around music that simultaneously embodies rhythmic, melodic, and harmonic complexity. What we term western classical music generally has only the simplest of rhythms, but is highly developed in melody and harmony. Most rhythms being rooted in dance. Something that seems to be common in many cultures. Modern classical has certainly taken on rhythmic complexity much more. Albeit in sometimes a very over-structured manner. Early proponents such as Steve Reich, Philip Glass etc.
Then you get some of the modern metal bands out there. Tool for instance, or Meshuggah. Going back a few decades, King Crimson. There is an entire genre that has the moniker “Math Rock”.
There is a reasonably well developed theoretical structure for these sorts of rhythmic structures, at least at the descriptive level. But not so much at the level of guidance that that say harmonic theory provides. The manner in which poly rhythms can produce remarkable shifts, building tension, odd release, and sometimes extraordinary entrancing patterns that are almost impossible to follow, but pull you in. There isn’t anything equivalent to a simple chart of harmonising chords and extensions.
All this is very western focussed. Classical Indian musicians will laugh at our paltry attempts.
But the stresses the OP is pointing out are not on the backbeat if you listen to the song. They’re on the 1 and 3. Which are traditionally the strong beats, though rock, jazz, blues pays special attention to the 2 and 4. And funk is all about the 1 usually. So I’m wondering if I’m misunderstanding the OP.
Can the OP show me a song in which they think falls on what they call “strong beats” (which I’m assuming is the back beat, or 2 and 4.) Because a lot of songs I’m thinking in my head fall with the stress on the 1 and 3 in the vocals, so I must be misunderstanding the question.
The simplest rock beat is boom-CRACK-boom-CRACK. If you know your drum instruments, the “boom” is the bass drum aka kick drum. The snare drum is the “CRACK.” If you know how to count beats in a piece of music, or if you’ve ever done dance classes with the traditional “5-6-7-8” intro, the even numbers are the back beat (traditionally the weak beats), and the odd numbers are classically the strong beats. It can way more detailed from here, but I’ll leave it at that. And if you’re hip and at a pop/rock/jazz/blues show, you clap on two and four, not one and three.
Here’s a crowd clapping on one and three, and in the piano solo Harry Connick, Jr. Adds an extra beat such that they are now clapping on the two and four, but to the delight of the drummer in the background.
But even here, the vocal stresses are mostly landing on the 1 and 3, so I’m not sure if I’m interpreting the OP correctly.
That particular sound is a snare rimshot. It’s played by striking the rim of the snare drum with the side of the stick, instead of using the tip of the stick on the drumhead.
It could be human-generated (by a drummer), but in this case is pretty clearly a sample. You can tell by the way the rimshots (both loud and quiet) always sound the same—humans can’t do that.
I’m not quite sure what you’re asking here, but if I’m interpreting it correctly, I call myself an audio engineer/producer Which one I am, on any given day, depends on my specific role on the project.
Identifying timbre (specific sound characteristics) is one of the basic skills any audio engineer or producer should have. Some can even tell which specific guitar/amp combinations, which microphones and other recording equipment were used, or who played on a song, just by the timbre.
But that’s not what a rimshot is, though, if I’m understanding you correctly. A rimshot is a powerful snare sound where you hit the drum head with the tip of your stick as normal and the rim with the body of the stick simultaneously. What you’re thinking of is called a cross stick, side stick, or stick click.
You’re right, I used the wrong term for the specific nuance. On the drum machines I learned the terminology from it was always just called ‘rim’ to distinguish it from the head-only strike. Thanks for clarifying the distinction.
Thank you. As a Javanese gamelan player, I won’t bore you with what is fundamental to that particular music (which is only one of a variety of gamelan traditions in Asia). But it has a lot to do with elaboration, density, mode, and polyphony. Western musicians need to throw a lot of their assumptions out the window in order to really feel and understand the music.
Is harmony the “chord” and “triple”, “fifth” that people talk about?
I admit I have troubles finding its beat. Seems like the pace changes quite a few times.
Now I’m hyped. Can you deliver a few examples for each?
You were interpreting it correctly, I meant they sing it on weak beats. If we use B for strong and b for weak, then upon a brief search, I don’t have a lyrical B24 at hand (most likely because, I believe, I found them unappealing and stopped listening. I distinctly remember some songs with the beat so loud right at important parts of the lyrics that I couldn’t make out what they say. Pretty stupid at that). edit: just found one, from a back beat article.
I did find an example of lyrical B13, First love by Utada Hikaru. Seems like Japanese love B13.
I recommend playing Beat Saber. The song sounds even better.
Can you mark the timestamp of that exact moment?
Holy crab, must have god-ears with plenty of training.
I think that “chak” (CRACK) sound is most similar to the 3rd in this vid (already timestamped).
Thank you guys, I 1st learned about “back beat” and other stuff here. Before this, I was so confused I almost didn’t know how to formulate the questions. So here are some more:
Looks like (western) music has only 2 modes: 3 beats (waltz) and 4 (everything else). When did this “mode4” begin, and when was it popular? Have they ever experienced with 5? Like, one TWO three four FIVE or sth.
Is my assessment correct that Knock knock has lyrical stress all over the place: b1, B4, sometimes B2 and b3, and on occasions, even off-beat? It’s 1 of the songs I love, so I want to know the keyword for this type of rhythm arrangement.
Yes. There are numerous instances of unusual time signatures. “Unusual,” because they’re rarely used, but they have been used before. Dave Brubeck’s “Take Five,” for example, is written in 5/4 time, with five beats to the bar. Genesis recorded “Supper’s Ready,” which is a 23-minute long suite. While it is one single song, it is divided into seven movements; one of which, “Apocalypse in 9/8 Time,” is in, well, 9/8 time (nine beats to the bar). And when I was in a choir, we once sang an oratorio that had a movement that was in 7/4 time (naturally, seven beats to the bar).
While I’ve never played “Take Five” or “Supper’s Ready,” I did sing that movement in 7/4 time with the other choir members. It took a little getting used to, because the time signature is so unusual, but we eventually got it.
A quick search found this introduction to time signatures, including the unusual ones:
Basically. A chord means more than one sound is playing at the same time. However, a composition will typically keep moving and have more chords and different chords, so that has to be considered as well; for instance, how to construct a sequence of chords.
It does, but again it tends to vary the mix. You rarely hear the three all running full throttle together. Sometimes, you do. But then again, jazz is a very broad church. As a colleague of mine once explained to me (and he really would know) jazz is a way of making music. Amongst jazz enthusiasts there are pretty intense and contradictory views about what is jazz and what isn’t.
My point of picking two of three is more about the complexity tending to overwhelm the puny human mind if you let loose all three at full throttle. So often genres tend to develop 2 of the 3. Modern musical efforts may well decide that overwhelming the puny brains of the listeners is fair game. But it sometimes feels like one is more a spectator to art, rather than actually being there to enjoy the music. (And I enjoy some reasonably weird stuff.)
Jazz contributed a lot to more modern musical use of poly-rhythmic music.
Luminaries like Billy Cobham were groundbreaking. Cobham influenced a huge number of players outside of jazz, including Bill Bruford (King Crimson) Danny Carey (Tool) and Phil Collins (Genesis and likely thus Suppers Ready). And it goes on. Miles Davis cast a very long shadow through all his work and those he brought to prominence. Also general curiosity saw musicians from the West seeking out broader understandings in the East. But there was very often a serious underpinning of jazz in the background. No doubt about that. There still is.
So which two of three do you think it is for jazz? Because I can’t tell which it developed more than the others to fit your two-of-three genre truism. I can see an argument for any arbitrary two of three.
Chords yes. By triple you probably mean “third”. Triple would be part of a rhythm - such as triple time. Root, third and fifth define a basic chord. You can build chords using notes on the diatonic scale, and the exact choice of notes tends to create different feels. All played notes tend to be composed of a fundamental frequency and a mix of multiples of the fundamental. So twice, three times, four times and so on. We call these the harmonics of the fundamental frequency. Play two notes, and all the multiples of both those notes interact. And do so in remarkable ways.
Root, and fifth are closely related - the frequency of the fifth is nominally the frequency of the root multiplied by 3/2. It mostly adds width to the sound as a lot of the harmonics of the two notes line up. Add another note and you swiftly obtain a slew of interacting harmonics that brings about a massive palate of tonal colour.
Choosing such chords to play in sequence in a manner that exploits the interplay of tonal colour and sequential relationship between components of the colours gets you into harmonic theory of music. Exploring the richness in only this can consume a lifetime. Anything from 3 chord blues and rock songs to the massive harmonic mastery of the great composers, musicians and songwriters.
One place your hear it a lot, is jazz. Knowing the basic set of chords (the changes) is enough for all the musicians to have enough common knowledge that they can play and improvise together with no additional prompting. Just very good ears to know what each is doing. A favourite example is Rhythm Changes. A band may often play that. It has nothing to do with rhythm. It is the chord changes from the Gershwin song I Got Rhythm. (Listen to the song, and then go listen to the theme song for The Flintstones.)
Understanding harmonic theory provides the underpinning for improvising and improvising away from the initial harmonic structure in a sensible and musical manner.
Jazz as a generally western tradition still doesn’t dive as deeply as rhythm can go. So I would still put harmony, melody and rhythm as the order jazz prioritizes the three. Jazz as a broad church within which all traditions can find something to contribute and something to gain: no order makes sense. Whatever works on the day.
