Songs that fool you about where the downbeat is.

Small Faces "Afterglow" - no matter how many times I listen to this song (which is fantastic although terribly marred by shitty pseudo-stereo mixing. I would kill for a proper mono mix of this song...) I just cannot figure out what beat it starts on. by the time the drums come in everything is pretty simple, but the intro bars with just the acoustic guitars/singing/percussion is so very WTF

it starts on the & of 3

the downbeat is the second beat of the 4/4 measure. "She Said She Said"'s second section is in 3/4, btw. the technique used in the Beatles' "Everybody's Got Something to Hide" is turning the beat around, where you displace the usual accents in the 4/4 measure, same thing is used in the intro to the Attractions' arrangement of Costello's "This Year's Girl." the funniest example of a well-known critic not knowing this stuff occurs in a review of Al Green's "Call Me" when the writer refers to the "third-beat" emphasis of the Hi Rhythm Band, when in fact the writer is mishearing the eighth notes as quarter notes; the emphasis is just on the downbeat but the writer hears it as "one-two-THREE" when it's actually "one-and-TWO."

it starts on the & of 3

lol ask a drummer... I think its the handclaps that have always thrown me off too

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGLKvDEq_Kk&feature=related

Part of me thinks techno must be full of these tracks and part of me thinks that they could be hard to find (at least on 12" cuts) what with the tradition of starting with drum intro for easier mixing.

Here's one though: Hardfloor - Strawberry Maze. Another "lone rhythmic bass noise in intro is actually off-beat" entry, but I'm not quite tired of them yet.

Here's another: Robert Hood - The Rhythm of Vision.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=07VVf77KVns

that one starts right on the downbeat

Another techno youtube - "What To Do" by Thomas Bangalter, off Trax on da Rox.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qyA5WnCfGKc

Doesn't quite match the thread title, starts with a very clear downbeat (your standard kick-hihat-snare-hihat drum-loop), then uses the samples to mess with your perception of where the bar begins. Awesome tune, but can be kind of difficult to dance to if you're thinking too much...

xpost

don't think so - starts on an offbeat ("&") - wait til the kick drum comes in around 1:10

The Robert Hood example does indeed start on a downbeat -- at least, if you count it this way...
http://sites.google.com/site/pnauert/rhood.png
... the kick drum entrance around 1:10 is in phase.

ha yeah, I was going to say, the tricky thing there is that the repetition can make you zone out and miss a beat

yeah, even if it starts on the 2 or something, it definitely does not start on an &

Fido, Your Leash is Too Long

Not a fool you about where the downbeat is example, but an example of something more syncopated and improvised then you would expect and hard to count is Anthony Jackson's bassline on "For The Love Of Money."

ok I believe you about the Robert Hood :)
it still surprises me when the kick drum drops!

Hardfloor - Strawberry Maze. Another "lone rhythmic bass noise in intro is actually off-beat" entry

Er, oops, it came up on random a while ago and I misremembered it (unless there's another mix). Starts with a pattern of stringy stabs an eighth note apart and your brain is like "ok, the second is probably the 1, but maybe the first" but you're actually listening to &2, &4...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dUlYtICk8IE

Do not listen if you hate 90s acid techno which doesn't do anything.

you can still start on the downbeat and be fooled by where the downbeat is, iirc tbh

tho i def wasnt fooled by that example

the downbeat is the second beat of the 4/4 measure.

No it isn't!

^^ was gonna say

Led Zep's Black Dog pwns this concept, no?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9i2fqxSjTI

IIRC it was written specifically to confuse/challenge all the garage band wannabes...

... really?

Never had a problem with "Walking on the Moon", but "Spirits in the Material World" still trips me up from time to time if I hear it wrong. So much emphasis on the off-beat, kick used as a snare.

This just happened to me with "Spirits" for a few seconds....

Sorta kinda in this vein:

Thomas Dolby's "One of Our Submarines" fades up on a vocal loop that sounds like "singmiss singmiss singmiss." Then he starts singing over it "One of our submarines is missing," and you suddenly realize the loop is saying "missing missing missing."

The beginning of "Car Wash" is like this.

Super Furry Animals - Pan Ddaw'r Wawr is a GREAT example of this. Unites the horn-march and the beat for the final chorus too.

Ha came here to say "walking on the moon" and discovered I already had. The Police were buggers for doing this a lot. "Spirits in the Material World" is another one.

"Satisfaction" already mentioned - I don't think I'll ever hear this one properly, afher countless hundreds of listens. By contrast, "All Along The Watchtower" I eventually came to understand, but only after hearing an early, long-unreleased mix without so much disorienting reverb on the percussion.

Faust - "So Far"; its written like a 4/4 jam, but it's actually in 7/4, so each measure kind of flips the beat (I think..not really an expert here). Once you notice it, you can't stop hearing it

new entry - radiohead 'little by little'

Fucking so disorienting ....

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4jdkj5FerdU

... really?

The radio edit of the Who's "You Better, You Bet" still throws me off.

xp listen to more than just the first 10 seconds

I listened to the whole song, it seems very straightforward and predictable in its beat

Okay.. To me that's not a typical intro.. The first count is not the downbeat, and neither is the one after it... It's like 5 counts away, and I can't figure it out without starting the song in the middle and concentrating.

The fourth kickdrum you hear is the downbeat; the previous 3 are pickup notes, basically a 16th note and two 8th notes. Furthermore, the pattern is repeated at the end of every measure, so even if you miss it the first time you hear the song you get calibrated almost immediately.

Am I right that some of the songs mentioned here don't have a downbeat? Like the Grateful Dead's "The Eleven"?

― Mark, Thursday, 19 November 2009 01:46 (1 year ago) Permalink

Do any Grateful Dead songs have a downbeat?

I can't figure out wtf either of these are supposed to mean. I challenge anyone to find any song without a downbeat (that's not an ambient piece or somehow otherwise rhythmless). Everything with a meter has a downbeat.

And on The Eleven, the downbeat is really heavily emphasized on every bar!

There are tracks where it sounds super complicated on first listen but then you realize it isn't, like Green Velvet's "The Stalker".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_fiBk3BH1Q

But the weirdest example of this isn't so much "I don't know where the downbeat is" but more "I don't know where the start of the phrase is" and that's Talking Heads "Once In A Lifetime".

I hear the beginning of each four-bar phrase in different places on the chorus and the verse. "with a BEAUT-iful house.. and a BEAUT-iful wife" -> "letting the DAYS go by".

If the chorus were to have the same 'starting point' as the verses for each four-bar phrase, the weighting would be "let the water hold me DOWN.. water flowing underGROUND" I can't train my ear to hear it this way though.

If Q. = dotted quarter, E. = dotted eighth, and S = sixteenth:

In the Green Velvet, are you hearing Q.-E.-E.-E.-S?If Q. = dotted quarter, E. = dotted eighth, and S = sixteenth:

In the Green Velvet, are you hearing the bassline as Q.-E.-E.-E.-S?

Whoa wtf

lol

XTC - 'Millions' (took me years to realise where the "one" was supposed to be)

Paul Weller - 'Into Tomorrow'

Mentioned a bunch of these on Music Theory thread instead of here because I forgot about this thread.
"Appetite," by Prefab Sprout has a tricky beginning.
"Esto Es El Guaguanco," by Cheo Feliciano has a slick intro with lots of syncopation that tries to throw you off before the song kicks into the regular part. "Gracia Divina," by The Larry Harlow Orchestra featuring Celia Cruz has some syncopation in the middle where you can get lost. Don't know if I mentioned "Across 110th Street," but that can also be a tiny bit challenging to count.

Sorry if I neglected to use Royal Canadian QUEES notation.

One I still can't get is "Your kiss is sweet" Syreeta. The 'movin on/won't lie' bit seems half (or quarter) a beat off. Is it?

solange's "rise" throws me at the end of every verse with a huge accent on the word "rise," which falls on the three, but the accent makes you think they've dropped a couple beats and you're now back on the one, but you aren't, and it takes a couple of bars to figure that out.

That is a great description of what it feels like when you lose count. Like the magician/hypnotist/pickpocket has distracted you and then removed a beat or two during the split second you weren't looking.

At one point I realized, but always have to remind myself, that when you can't figure out the meter it is good to keep counting to a higher number rather then resetting based on a low number such as 3,4,5,6 or even 7 or 8. By the time you hit 12 or 14, 15, 16 you may well figure out if something is in, say 6/8 but with a syncopated part alternating with a less syncopated part, or really in 7/8, or has an alternating structure, a bar of 3/4 then some bars or 4/4 or is just in 4/4 but with the accents all on syncopations.