We’ve all seen it and done it: You’re in a crowd, a song is playing, and suddenly the whole crowd starts clapping with the beat. Why? Is there a certain beat or timing that sparks some irresistible urge to clap along?
I don’t think it’s totally random, because it seems practically the whole crowd begins to clap at the same time – as opposed to a few starting it and then others joining in slowly. And it doesn’t happen with every song. Even with the same crowd in the same mood from one moment to the next, it seems some songs will prompt this rhythmic clapping and some won’t. I don’t think it’s just that the crowd is happy, enthused, whatever, and feel like clapping along.
I think it may be prompted by the same thing that makes us tap our feet or hum or sing along with music, a need to participate, rather than simply being a motionless observer. My question is: why does it usually occur in 4/4 time, with accented off-beats? I’ve never heard an audience clap along in 3/4 time, except perhaps in a Bavarian beer garden.
As a sometimes-performer I have mixed feelings about it. I appreciate the audience’s enthusiasm, but it can be a real distractions to the performers, especially when the music has a sudden change in tempo, or the clapping gets gradually faster.
I’ve always thought that frustrating the urge to dance results in “rhythmic clapping.” Outside the big concert halls, I’ve most often noted people clapping along to Bluegrass. It can be a fine musical genre, but springs from “no dancing allowed” Southern roots. Well, clog dancing or square dancing might be permitted–but none of that Honky Tonk Belly Rubbin’!
As a result, the clapping tends to lack good rhythmic sense. It often becomes leaden. If the tempo changes, the clapping doesn’t.
There’s an essay here, somewhere. Drums were long barred from the Opry stage–fear of the African-American roots of so much country music? Western Swing & Honky Tonk arose in dance halls & beer joints. Often far from Nashville–in such unGodly places as Texas. Texas–where European immigrants brought their polkas & other dances. Some of them were even Catholics!
I love the music of Emmylou Harris. But some of her compilations bog down in the mid-career period; loping rhythms begin to drag. Then, I heard her in an interview, saying “I don’t dance.”
What’s funny is how many white people can’t figure out how to clap on off-beats!
Dave Barry has invented the Rhythm Impairment Test for Republicans: Clap along to “Hit the Road, Jack.” If you clap to the 1 and 3 beats (right on top of the syllables road and Jack) instead of the 2 and 4 beats (the beats in between those syllables), there’s probably no hope for you.
The clapping on 1 and 3 thing drives my husband (drummer) crazy. He’s swears he’ll disown his children if he ever catches them clapping on 1 and 3.
I think it’s interesting that some people have no rhythm. I’ve been in situations where, as you describe, the audience is clapping and there’s that one person who is valiently trying to clap along but isn’t getting it. Not 1 and 3, not 2 and 4, not anything just trying and failing to feel the beat. Must be a missing gene or something.
Did you just answer my OP? 4/4 time and accented off beats is a foreign language to me, but is that what prompts people to clap? That would make some sense because , as I said in the OP, it seems to me there’s something particular about the music that prompts this behavior.
I’m not talking about when someone on stage prompts the clapping. For instance, I’ve seen ice skating competitions where the audience suddenly starts clapping in unison, with no one prompting it at all.
It may not apply to all music, but we’re kind of raised in an environment which promotes 4/4 time, with strong snare drum accents on the 2 & 4. Turn on the radio, and almost every pop song you will hear will have a snare falling on the 2 & 4. It seems only natural to want to imitate this beat we’ve grown up with.