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") is any of the even "beats" as opposed to the odd downbeats, ie pulses which are weak on their respective metric levels. The name refers to the common practice of striking the drum on the odd beats and backing the hand or drumstick away from the drum on the even beats. In common time (4/4), the back beats are the second and fourth beats. The release on beats 2 and 4 sets the mood for the "groove", and gives the song a danceable feel.

In popular music, back beat also refers to a percussion style or technique where a strong rhythmic 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.

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.

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