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Disclaimer: It's difficult mixing terminology between Western and non-Western musics, but I'll try to make my question as clear as possible.

Western Classical music most often has an accent at the start of a given metrical unit; we call it the downbeat. Although there may be an anacrusis, the metrical accent nevertheless typically aligns with the beginning of a barline. In contrast, I've heard that some non-Western cultures are "end accented" and focus on the ends of units/phrases; is this in fact the case?

And a bonus question, if this even exists: are there cultures that metrically emphasize something other than the beginning or end?

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  • I'm a bit confused as to the usage of 'phrase' and 'unit' here, and the way they seem to be used interchangeably. by 'unit' do you mean something similar to what would normally be called a 'bar'?
    – Нет войне
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 17:23
  • As an illustration of my confusion : Imagine a string of 16 sixteenth notes. In Western music, the metrical accent will be on the first sixteenth note to mark the beginning of the unit - even with really 'straight' accentation (say, in 4/4), that would only be the case if the first note fell on (say) the first beat of the bar.
    – Нет войне
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 17:24
  • By "unit" I just mean some upper level of hierarchy equal or greater than what we would normally call a "bar." The reason I switch terms around is just because I don't know enough about gamelan music to know what to call it!
    – Richard
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 17:25
  • I'm just thinking if modelled in Western terms, and assuming (say) straight 4/4 accenting, you'd normally assume that if you had 15 weak notes followed by a strong note, that you'd think of the strong note as the bar boundary. So I'm wondering why it can't be seen as the beginning of a 'unit' in Gamelan music, even if it's the end of a phrase. I realise this may be showing my own ignorance of Gamelan.
    – Нет войне
    Commented Aug 12, 2016 at 17:29
  • I'm not sure this is really a strict dichotomy, Richard. We have a notational convention of placing strong beats immediately after the bar line, but strong beats at the beginning of a phrase are only one of the rhythmic possibilities available. Phrases that start with an anacrusis, even 15/16 worth of anacrusis, are not uncommon, and phrases that end on a strong beat are as common as dirt, especially at section and movement ends.
    – user16935
    Commented Aug 16, 2016 at 19:56

2 Answers 2

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Rock, pop, and rhythm and blues often emphasize the second and last beat. This emphasis also serves as a backdrop to funk (more below). Reggae has an even heavier emphasis on the same beats often accompanied with an offbeat emphasis.

Regarding the bonus question, jazz emphasizes the offbeat and in the jazz "subculture" the band leader typically counts in by snapping the fingers of one hand on the offbeat. In contrast, funk emphasizes the first beat together with "in the pocket" usually expressed as a few select notes from a shuffle pattern while leaving out (some) dotted notes. It might be a stretch to say that these examples belong to a specific culture, but all these genres are ultimately of African-American origin.

What these examples have in common is often multiple layers of emphases from different instruments. In this regard, these modern genres are rather polyrhytmic than homorhythmic. In postclassical contemporary art music, polyrhytms take this concept to the extreme. They are most common in minimalistic (or more specifically "postminimalistic") works, which originated mainly in New York during the 1960s.

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I've recently studied solkattu, South-Indian (Carnatic) spoken percussion, which could be viewed as one instance of this ending accent.

One element of solkattu is gopucha, which translates to "cow's tail." Gopucha is a process by which rhythmic elements become increasingly tightened together. Because of this tightening, it's not always immediately clear when the rhythmic process will end.

Here is a quick example of gopucha; listen to how the performer's "ta di gi na" syllables become increasingly closer together.

Another major element of this style is kanakku, which translates to "calculation." When a gopucha is to be introduced, then, the performer must calculate when to begin the gopucha so that the ending aligns with the conclusion of the tala (meter).

As such, the practice can be understood as "end accented" because it's not about processes starting together (as is so often the case in the Western style), but rather processes ending together.

(In the 6.5 years since asking this question, I have not found any styles with accents in the middles of units.)

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  • Even then, I'd hesitate to bring the word "accent" into the discussion. My knowledge of tala is pretty basic, and this seems to be a pretty complex tala, but they still mark it with hand gestures of "palm down vs palm up" (I'm also used to "palm down, followed by counting on fingers"). I've followed simpler talas that were comparable to 4/4—a "downbeat" followed by three "other beats." So even if the rhythmic pattern of this video focuses on "the end," there's still "a beginning." Plus, although, yes, there's a distinct musical emphasis on an "offbeat," the tala is undisturbed; if anything,...
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jan 26, 2023 at 17:19
  • ... it helps illustrate the idea that conceptual metric "emphases" do not have to correlate to actual performative ones.
    – Andy Bonner
    Commented Jan 26, 2023 at 17:20

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