backbeat study presentation

8/10/2019 backbeat study presentation

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Ethan Hein

A Study of

Clappingon the

Backbeat


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In 1993, the blues musician Taj Mahal gave a

solo concert at the Modernes Club in Bremen,Germany. The concert was later released as the

album An Evening of Acoustic Music. Tajbegins to play "Blues with a Feeling," and theaudience enthusiastically claps along.

However, they do so on beats one and three,

not two and four like they are supposed to. Tajimmediately stops playing and says, "Wait,

wait, wait. Wait wait. This is schvartze [black]music... zwei and fier, one TWO three FOUR,okay?" He resumes the song, and the audience

continues to clap on the wrong beats. So he

stops again. "No, no, no, no. Everybody's like,ONE, two, THREE, no no no. Classical music,

yes. Mozart, Chopin, okay? Tchaikovsky, right?

Vladimir Horowitz. ONE two THREE. Butschvartze music, one TWO three FOUR, okay?"

He starts yet again, and finally the audience

claps along correctly.


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Research question

To what degree do people knowthat they are supposed to clap on

the backbeat along with theblues and music like it? Doesmusical training or practice

correlate with knowledge of the

backbeat clapping convention?

Hypothesis

Clapping on the backbeat ofdance-oriented 4/4 rhythms

strongly correlates with musical

training and experience in musicof the African diaspora: jazz,

rock, blues, funk, R&B, hip-hop

and related styles. Clapping onthe backbeat correlates weakly

with training and experience in

other musical idioms.


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Musical and rhythmic behavior inhumans creates a temporal

framework, collective emotionality,

a feeling of shared experience, and

cohesiveness to group activities andritualistic ceremonies (Bispham

2006). We see a shadow of musicsancestral purpose when an audience

claps in unison at a concert.

We use coordinated rhythmic movements both for literal physical mirroring and formetaphorical mirroring, i.e. empathy. This socially mediated synchronization

explains why it matters to musicians which beats the audience claps on. Taj Mahal

found it distressing when his audience clapped wrong because it felt like a failure toemotionally connect with them.

Group clapping helps to unify theaudiences perception of the tactus,the central pulse. Bodily movement

does not merely accompany

listening; it enhances our ability tolisten.


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Syncopationis a crucial method of generating rhythmic suspense and drama.

We can consider rhythms to be consonant and dissonant depending ontheir degree of metrical tension. Temperley (2010) defines syncopation as

rhythmic events that are improbable by the norms of classical common-practicerhythm. Syncopation violates the usual rhythmic hierarchy, and "represents theaspect of rhythmic complexity that does not relate to repetitiveness. By this

measure, current popular music is extraordinarily rhythmically complex, even

though it may be simple harmonically and structurally (Temperley 1999).

We can determine the metric salience of each event in a rhythmic pattern by

recursively breaking down a musical pattern (with an initially specified length)

into subpatterns of equal length. The more subdivisions it takes to reach agiven event, the lower its metrical salience. In 4/4 time, the downbeat is the

most salient position, followed by beat three. It would seem natural to clap onthe strongest, most salient beatindeed, this is what many untrained listeners

do. However, the Afro-Caribbean core of American popular/vernacular music

asks us to accent the less metrically salient backbeats instead.


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Background on the backbeat

A backbeat rhythm places percussive accents on the weak beats, typically the

second and fourth beats in 4/4 time. Accented backbeats are most commonlyplayed on the snare drum, but can be performed on any instrument.

The backbeat originated in Dixieland jazz, country and gospel music. It has

since become ubiquitous throughout American and global popular music.While accenting weak beats was a common device in American popular

music throughout the first half of the twentieth century, the term backbeatdid not enter common usage until the advent of rock and roll in the early1950sappropriately enough, since the backbeat is a foundational

component of rock.


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The dominance of the backbeat is a significant factor in the broader Africanizationof American music. You can hear the vestiges of traditional West African music

that survived slavery in the percussion-heavy, improvisationally oriented and

shouted/chanted music on every pop radio station. Generally speaking, Africanmusic is rhythmically complex and harmonically static, a neat inverse of Europes

harmonically rich but rhythmically unsophisticated tradition. American musical

history is largely shaped by the collision between these two musical cultures,along with contributions from immigrant groups and international influences.


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In spite of the backbeat's popularity, it is widelymisunderstood. The tangled history of Americas racial

and class politics may provide an explanation. The

backbeat originated in the music of marginalized groups:African-Americans, poor rural whites, and immigrants.

Their music styles have been regarded throughout their

history to be disreputable, low-class, primitive andbarbaric, even perceived as undermining the moral fabric

of society entirely. Funk in particular threatens

Americans more puritanical instincts, due to itsassociations with bodily functions and sexual odors.

Terms of praise among funk musicians include dirty, filthy,

raw, stanky and nasty. These bodily metaphors areintrinsic to funks appeal, particularly its ability to inspire

audience participation and dancing, but a great many

Americans find them anxiety-producing, even threatening.Furthermore, funks overt Afrocentrism provokes racial

anxieties that have only been heightened by hip-hop. The

jazz drummer Max Roach is quoted by Greenwald (2002):"The thing that frightened people about hip-hop was that

they heard rhythmrhythm for rhythm's sake."


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As long as Americans devalue the

bodily intelligence represented by thebackbeat, they will naturally continue

to misunderstand and demean it.McClary (1989) argues that it requiresgreater skill and musicality to produce

the groove in a dance-oriented Earth,

Wind & Fire song than to generatethe self-denying, difficult rhythms"

in modern classical music. "One needonly observe professional classicalperformers attempting to capture

anything approaching swing (forget

about funk!) to appreciate how trulydifficult this apparently immediate

music is. We may hope that backbeat-

based dance music will continue tofind the acceptance and understanding

that has thus far failed to match its

popularity.


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Procedure

Participants filled out questionnairesasking them to self-evaluate their degree of

sophistication with African diasporic musicand music generally. They then clapped toa series of breakbeats representative of

contemporary dance music. The beats were

looped continuously in Ableton Live 8.Participants were told to clap along in

whatever way they felt to make the mostmusical sense. Their performances wererecorded via a Macbook Pros built-in

microphone into Live. The experimenter

stopped recording when the participantwas observed to be clapping in a stable

pattern. The drum loops were presented in

a mostly random order, with exception ofthe the most complex break. This was

presented last, out of concern that

participants would be discouraged by it.


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Methodology

The twenty-two study participants wereNew York City residents between

twenty and forty years old, spanning abroad variety of nationalities andcultural backgrounds. Most had formal

musical experience and training, some

up to the professional level, but effortwas made to include non-musicians as

well. The stimuli were breakbeatschosen on the basis of their familiarity toeven casual listeners of contemporary

backbeat-driven African diasporic

music. All are in 4/4 time at medium tofast dance tempi. Their instrumentation

is limited to standard drum kit, except

for Take Me to the Mardi Gras, whichadds bells and found sounds. The

breakbeats are listed below in order of

increasing complexity.


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Impeach the President

This two-bar drum pattern opens a little-known 1973 song by the HoneyDrippers. Despite the source recordings obscurity, the breakbeat is one of

the most common samples in hip-hop. It has appeared in songs by Audio

Two, Eric B. and Rakim, Big Daddy Kane, Biz Markie, Slick Rick, Nice &Smooth, De La Soul, Mary J. Blige, Digable Planets, Notorious B.I.G. and the

Wu-Tang Clan, among many others.


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Take Me to the Mardi Gras

The opening to Bob James 1975 instrumental version of Paul Simon's song"Take Me to the Mardi Gras" combines a funk beat, an agog bell pattern

and some sampled radio chatter. This break is best known as the basis for

"Peter Piper" by Run-DMC, and has also been sampled by LL Cool J, theBeastie Boys, Missy Elliott, Common and the Wu-Tang Clan. It is distinctive

in its blend of traditional Afro-Caribbean rhythm, American funk and

musique concrte.


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The Funky Drummer

"The Funky Drummer Parts One and Two" by James Brown and the JBs,

recorded in 1969, was not well known until the first generation of hip-hop

producers discovered Clyde Stubblefield's drum break. In 1986, Polydorreleased In The Jungle Groove, a compilation featuring the hard-edged,

open-ended grooves preferred by hip-hop listeners. It was the first album

release of "The Funky Drummer Parts One and Two" and also included asampling-friendly remix of the break, "Funky Drummer (Bonus Beat

Reprise)." The break has since appeared in uncountably many hip-hop,

dance, pop and rock songs.


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Amen, Brother

There are few sounds more important to electronic dance music than

Gregory Cylvester Coleman's drum break in "Amen Brother" by the

Winstons, an obscure B-side to the minor hit "Color Him Father." Since theAmen break began to appear in hip-hop songs in the early 1980s, it has

become ubiquitous throughout all styles of electronic dance music. Inparticular, the beats in the Drum n Bass genre consist almost entirely ofreshuffled and altered versions of the Amen break. The break has crossed

over into the popular mainstream as well, even appearing in television

theme songs and commercials.


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The questionnaires were adapted from Mllensiefen, D., Gingras, B., Stewart,

L. & Musil, J. (2011). The Goldsmiths Musical Sophistication Index (Gold-MSI):

Technical Report and Documentation v0.9. London: Goldsmiths, University of

London. Unless otherwise specified, question response choices were:1. Completely Disagree2. Strongly Disagree

3. Disagree

4. Neither Agree nor Disagree

5. Agree6. Strongly Agree

7. Completely Agree

For the purposes of the questionnaire, African diasporic music includes but is

not limited to the following genres and their subgenres. Blues Gospel (spirituals)

Jazz (ragtime, swing, bebop, free/avant-garde, fusion, Latin, bossa)

Country (bluegrass, zydeco) R&B (doo-wop, soul, funk, disco)

Rock (rockabilly, punk, indie, metal)

Afro-Caribbean (son, rumba, salsa and merengue, calypso, soca, etc.) Reggae (ska, dub, dancehall)

Electronic dance music (electro, house, techno, drum n bass, dubstep, etc.)

Hip-Hop


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1. I often listen to African diasporic music as a mainactivity.

2. I consider one or more forms of African diasporicmusic to be a central part of my identity.

3. Certain pieces of African diasporic music can sendshivers down my spine.

4. I use African diasporic music to calm myself whenI'm stressed.

5. I'm intrigued by musical styles I'm not familiar withand want to find out more.

6. I generally tap or clap along when listening toAfrican diasporic music.

7. I think that African diasporic music is very importantfor setting the atmosphere of an occasion.8. I can compare and discuss differences between two

performances or versions of the same piece of Africandiasporic music.

9. I can clap along to music in a group situation withouthaving to follow other people's lead.

10. I have been complimented for my talents as a musicalperformer in one or more African diasporic styles.

11. I can tell when people sing or play out of time withthe beat.

12. The ability to play African diasporic music is a veryvaluable skill.

13. I have no difficulty in distinguishing between Africandiasporic musical genres.

14. African diasporic music is an addiction for me - Icouldn't live without it.

a. 0b. 1c. 2

d. 3

e. 4 5f. 6 9g. 10 or more

a. 0b. !

c. 1d. 2

e. 3 5f. 6 9g. 10 or more

a. 0 - 15 minutesb. 15 - 30 minutes

c. 30 - 60 minutesd. 60 - 90 minutes

e. 2 hoursf. 2 - 3 hours

g. 4 hours or more

a. 0b. 1c. 2

d. 3

e. 4 6f. 7 10g. 11 or more

African Diasporic Musical Sophistication Assessment

15. I often read or search the internet for things related toAfrican diasporic music.

16. I often pick particular African diasporic music to motivate orexcite me.

17. I have engaged in regular daily practice of African diasporicmusic on an instrument or vocally for this many years:

18. I have had formal training in an African diasporic style onany instrument (including voice) for this many years:

19. I listen attentively to African diasporic music for this

amount of time per day:

20. I have attended this many live African diasporic musicevents as an audience member in the past twelve months:


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General Musical Sophistication Assessment

1. I often listen to any kind of music as a main activity.2. I consider one or more forms of any kind of music

to be a central part of my identity.

3. Certain pieces of music can send shivers down myspine.

4. I use any kind of music to calm myself when I'mstressed.

5. If I hear two tones played one after another, I have

no trouble judging which of them is higher.6. I generally tap or clap along when listening to any

music with a beat.7. I think that music in general is very important for

setting the atmosphere of an occasion.8. I can compare and discuss differences between two

performances or versions of the same piece of anykind of music.

9. I can sing or play music from memory.

10. I have been complimented for my talents as amusical performer in any style.

11. I can tell when people sing or play out of tune.12. The ability to play any kind of music is a very

valuable skill.13. I have no difficulty in distinguishing between

musical genres.14. Music of any kind is an addiction for me - I couldn't

live without it.

15. I often read or search the internet for things related toany kind of music.

16. I often pick particular music to motivate or excite me.

17. I have engaged in regular daily practice of any kind ofmusic on an instrument or vocally for this many years:

18. I have had formal training in any style of music onany instrument (including voice) for this many years:

19. I listen attentively to any kind of music for this amountof time per day:

20. I have attended this many live music events of any kindas an audience member in the past twelve months:

a. 0b. 1c. 2

d. 3

e. 4 5f. 6 9g. 10 or more

a. 0b. !c. 1d. 2

e. 3 5f. 6 9g. 10 or more

a. 0 - 15 minutes

b. 15 - 30 minutesc. 30 - 60 minutesd. 60 - 90 minutes

e. 2 hours

f. 2 - 3 hoursg. 4 hours or more

a. 0b. 1c. 2d. 3

e. 4 6f. 7 10g. 11 or more


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Results

This image shows Take Me to the Mardi Gras and the first few recorded responses.

The top waveform is the stimulus. The tracks below show three participantsclapping on the backbeats, followed by one clapping on the strong beats.


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Most participants interpreted the instructions to mean that they should

simply clap to the beat. A minority used more expressive and complexclapping patterns, or settled into haphazard and idiosyncratic patterns. Two

participants results were not used, as their clapping did not ever settle intodistinguishable patterns.

The following five figures display aggregate clapping results for each

stimulus. The vertical axes show total number of claps recorded across allparticipants.

The Funky Drummer

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +


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Impeach the President

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

20

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

Take Me to the Mardi Gras

The majority of

participants clapped

consistently on thebackbeats. Contrary to

expectation, the beat to

receive the next mostclaps was not the

downbeat; rather, beat

three received slightlymore claps. This may

indicate a slight

preference for thehyper-backbeat,

considering a measure

to be two bars of four.


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Amen, Brother

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +

As expected, the Amen breakproduced the most variation

in clapping patterns, since itshigh degree of syncopationtended to throw participants

off. Surprisingly, of the

remaining stimuli, Billie Jeanshowed the most variation in

responses, in spite of itssimplicity. Several participantsreported being distracted by

the recordings familiarity;

they said that they werewaiting for the bassline and

synthesizer stabs to enter, andwere attempting to clap tothose other patterns.

Billie Jean

0

2

4

6

8

10

12

14

16

18

1 + 2 + 3 + 4 +


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Subjectnumber

African diasporicmusical sophisticationscore

General musicalsophisticationscore

Ratio of Africandiasporic to generalsophisticationscores

Backbeatclappingscore

7593 107 95 1.13 5

2423 105 99 1.06 10

3926 110 105 1.05 10

2524 58 57 1.02 10

6147 68 67 1.01 87767 77 76 1.01 6

2415 104 103 1.01 7

7098 105 107 0.98 10

849 89 92 0.97 9

7155 55 57 0.96 1

285 107 112 0.96 10

2683 106 111 0.95 3

5094 96 101 0.95 10

2982 100 107 0.93 10

675 105 117 0.90 104378 86 96 0.90 10

9876 87 99 0.88 6

5406 87 115 0.76 8

2630 49 95 0.52 1

5769 37 90 0.41 3

Mean 86.90 95.05 0.92 7.35

StandardDeviation 22.33 17.80 0.17 3.20

This table shows participants musical sophistication and backbeat

clapping scores. We expected participants with the largest ratio ofAfrican diasporic to general musical sophistication to have the

highest backbeat clapping scores. This was indeed largely the

case, though there was more variation than expected.


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Subjectnumber

Ratio of Africandiasporic musicalsophistication score tobackbeat clapping score

Ratio of generalmusicalsophistication scoreto backbeat clappingscore

7593 21.40 19.00

2423 10.50 9.90

3926 11.00 10.50

2524 5.80 5.70

6147 8.50 8.38

7767 12.83 12.67

2415 14.86 14.71

7098 10.50 10.70

849 9.89 10.22

7155 55.00 57.00

285 10.70 11.202683 35.33 37.00

5094 9.60 10.10

2982 10.00 10.70

675 10.50 11.70

4378 8.60 9.60

9876 14.50 16.50

5406 10.88 14.38

2630 49.00 95.00

5769 12.33 30.00

Mean 16.59 20.25

StandardDeviation 13.64 21.35

A comparison of

participants musical

sophistication scores

to their backbeatclapping scores shows

significant variationfrom the mean. The

noisiness of the

results is most likelythe result of the

questionnaires

intrinsic subjectivity.


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African Diasporic Music Sophistication Scorevs Backbeat Clapping Score

General Music Sophistication Scorevs Backbeat Clapping Score

0

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

9

10

0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

Backbeatclapping

scores

Musical sophistication scores

A graph showing lines of best fit through scatter plots of the compared musical

sophistication and backbeat clapping scores reveals an unambiguous positive

correlation between both African diasporic and general musical sophistication scoresand backbeat clapping scores. Furthermore, as expected, the correlation is stronger

for African diasporic musical sophistication than for general musical sophistication.


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Finally, subject 5769 was an interesting outlier. He is an accomplished tabla player inthe Hindustani classical tradition, but he has had little exposure to Western music, and

is almost totally unfamiliar with African diasporic music. He was the only participant

to have encountered all five breakbeats for the first time during the experiment, andhis clapping choices were totally idiosyncratic:

Billie Jean: and of two, and of four, i.e. the backbeats displaced half a beat.

Impeach the President: and of two, and of three. Take Me to the Mardi Gras: a complex sixteenth-note pattern.

The Funky Drummer: and of three, four, and of four.

Amen, Brother: another complex sixteenth-note pattern.It would be a fascinating

exercise to record him

improvising on the tablain reaction to these and

other breakbeats. In

addition to itsmusicological value, it

would likely make an

enjoyable work of art.


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Problems and challenges

The greatest limitation of the study lies in the method of quantifying musicalsophistication. This study likely understates the difference between the ratio of

African diasporic sophistication score to backbeat clapping score versus the ratioof general musical sophistication score to backbeat score. African diasporic musicis a subset of music generally, not an oppositional category.

As mentioned in the Results section, the noisiness of the data is likely caused bythe participants subjective responses to the questionnaires. Reducing all of the

intricate complexities of a persons musical knowledge and experience to a singlenumber is an inherently problematic undertaking. The Goldsmiths MusicalSophistication Index is as good a tool as one could ask for, but it still suffers from

the vagaries of subjective self-evaluation. Respondents may overvalue or

undervalue their abilities; they may use more or less stringent value scales toevaluate themselves; they may interpret questions and instructions in unexpected

ways. The Goldsmiths survey seeks to compensate for these problems by asking agreat many questions with as much precision of language as possible. However,the Goldsmiths surveys thoroughness poses a problem of its own, since filling it

out is quite time-consuming. The present experiment sacrifices a great deal of the

Goldsmiths surveys nuance in favor of a more manageably brief questionnaire.


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Directions for further research

The experiment did not strictly compare clapping on the backbeat to clappingon the strong beats; rather, it compared both of these categories to clapping

on every eighth note, or every quarter note, or some other combination ofbeats. It would perhaps have been better to instruct participants to clap out asteady beat, rather than allowing them to clap in whatever manner they

chose. However, in the interest of including non-musicians, it was ultimately

decided to keep the instructions open-ended. It would be interesting to seewhether a study restricting participants to strong beats or backbeats only

would strengthen or weaken the present studys findings.

Another intriguing line of research would be to test familiarity with other

customary clapping patterns, for example Afro-Cuban son clave. While this

pattern is not as familiar or ubiquitous as the backbeat, it is still afoundational motif throughout African diasporic music. However, because

the pattern is more complex and subtle, it would likely be necessary torestrict test subjects to musicians in order to obtain meaningful results.


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References

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