Back beat

This article is about musical beats. For the film about The Beatles, see Backbeat (film).

In music a back beat (or "the off-beat", "the up-beat")) is any of the even "beats" (eg, quarter beats 2 and 4) as opposed to the odd downbeats, (eg quarter beats 1 and 3), which are called downbeats because the conductor normally points his stick down.

The name back beat refers to the common practice of backing the hand or drumstick away from the drum on the even beats in Classical music. In comparison, modern music uses the off beat to create tension. The name off-beat refers to the fact that when the down beat is not happening, it is considered that the player is not on the beat, that the player should be in fact up-beat, away from striking the drum. Release (or not hitting the drum) on the off beat sets a mood that causes "groove", and often gives the piece a danceable feel.

In popular music, back beat refers to a percussion style or technique where a strong accent is sounded on the second and fourth beats of the bar, most often from striking a snare drum. This is a form of syncopation, and the tension between the normally much stronger first and third beats (downbeats) and the backbeats creates interest, because of this it widely used in Rock music, especially Thrash Metal.

The style emerged in the late 1940s in rhythm and blues recordings, and is one of the defining characteristics of rock and roll and is used in virtually all contemporary popular music, bossa nova being a notable exception. Drummer Earl Palmer states the first record with nothing but back beat was "The Fat Man" by Fats Domino in 1949, which he played on. Palmer says he adopted it from the shout (last) chorus in Dixieland. Another song that employs the back beat is Ike Turner's "Rocket 88", which is one of the seminal works in early rock history.

In Reggae music, the term 'One Drop' reflects the complete de-emphasis (to the point of silence) of the first beat in the cycle.