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The upbeat is where the song starts.
Imagine starting the song "Happy birthday to you" without the upbeat; then you would start singing "birthday to you".
When you reach the end you don't play the upbeat of the song. Imagine ending "Happy birthday to you" by singing "Happy".
So the upbeat is part of the song, starting the song, and should be played at that ...
14
This is also called pickup note, pickup measure or anacrusis. You can read about it here: Wiki
You can find them in a lot of songs, like Happy Birthday for example:
Of course you don't have to use any pickup measures in your songs if they don't need one.
However, if you use them, be sure to subtract the note duration of your pickup measure from the last ...
7
2/4 would probably strong-weak or a bar divided into eight notes with strong-weak-less strong-weak.
It’s the first one, never the second. That’s the difference. Four beats in 4/4 is strong-weak-medium-weak, and four beats in 2/4 is strong-weak-strong-weak.
One way to think of 2/4 is as a march. As in feet going left-right-left-right. So there’s a simple ...
6
Upbeats (as written in the OP) are played as if they were the last beat(s) of the pickup measure. In the posted piece, one can imagine (but not play) the 3-beat rest before the quarter note. The point is to begin a melody on an unaccented beat.
There need not be anything at the end of the piece to make up for the upbeat. In some styles (older but not ...
5
Beatmaking stems from the use of a regular acoustic drum kit in rock, pop, and perhaps especially R&B and funk. Early beats that were made with drum machines or samples were usually meant to re-create beats played on actual drum kits. The most commonly used pieces of the drum kit are just as you list:
Kick
Snare
Hi-hat (open and closed)
Many of the ...
5
If the time signature is 4/4, there are always 4 beats in every bar. But that doesn't have necessarily anything to do with how many "actions" you perform per bar, i.e. how many times you pick/finger a string or anything.
How many "actions per bar" you do depends on the rhythm pattern and how you realize it, and there are any number of different rhythms and ...
5
Yes, typically what you're hearing referred to as "boom bap" is what's called (to normal musicians) a breakbeat -- which differs from a steady or "four-on-the-floor" beat, in the sense that the lower percussive element (kick) is on a broken beat.
So you have four distinctive rhythmic elements in play. As far as I know, all of these have roots in rock/blues/...
4
A lot of music - but not all, by any means - has a pulse running through it. The component which often gets the foot tapping. That is what usually dictates what the time sig. will be for a piece. When that piece is then written down, it's simple to divide the music into small sections which are designated bars or measures.
The first beat in most of those ...
4
In a classical sense, it would make sense to use the term "counterpoint" for the distinct melody lines all sounding independent. In a more general and often rhythmic sense, it could also be called polyphony. Also, "layered texture" might be a more contemporary description of the effect.
I advise everyone that it's not extremely important to have classical ...
4
Counterpoint or counter-rhythm.
Some feel 'counterpoint' should only be used with the mean 'point against point' meaning pitch against pitch and use the term 'counter-rhythm' to mean the combination of more than one rhythm.
4
It makes more sense when words are involved. The upbeat is often a less emphasised word than the one following it - which needs to be emphasised. Happy birthday to you. My bonnie lies over the ocean. Oh, say can you see (by the dawn's early light).
In order to get the emphasised word in the right place in the bar at the beginning (and anywhere else in the ...
4
It's not clear exactly what genres (the phrase "modern music" isn't very precise) you're asking about, so I'll cover several of them:
Rock, Hard Rock, Punk, Country: More often real acoustic drums played by a drummer and recorded. Sometimes drum replacement may be used if one or more of the drum sounds is off or has a problem - that's where the acoustic ...
3
Todd and No'am have provided general answers, so just to pick up your questions:
For example, if I use pro tools for making music, can I replace and modify all the sounds that those devices produce by using a keyboard connected to pro tools?
Typically yes, you have a lot of control over your sounds (within the limits of the capabilities of the devices) ...
3
Very very quick overview:
Synthesizer: A device or program that takes in note and other control input via MIDI messages and/or control voltages and produces electronic sounds based on the input. Synthesizers can make almost any kind of sound you can imagine, and have a wide range of controls. The most common hardware synthesizers include a piano like ...
3
It's in 4/4 time, and that's made very clear by the backing drums.
However, there are certainly moments where she loses track of the subdivisions of that 4/4 time.
As a simple example, she starts a riff at 0:28 that has a clear beat 4 on every measure. This lasts until about 0:43. Try conducting in 4/4 along with it, and see if there are ever times where ...
3
It's probably possible to learn just from using a DAW, but I wouldn't think it would be the easiest way to learn. Most DAW software isn't at all suitable for beginners and doesn't 'help' you a lot - DAWs are complicated and you need a lot of knowledge in music and sound engineering to be able to get them to do what you want.
Also, most people who use DAW ...
3
I find horizontal motion very useful. It's hard to keep the ictus in the same place and capitalize on that usefulness, although I suppose it is possible.
Regardless, don't forget the musicians who are to your right and left. They won't see much in the way of horizontal motion unless you turn yourself to face them. They won't easily be able to see whether ...
3
It could be. And it could be doubled to play twice in a bar, the second time with a 5th of the chord instead of the 'base' note. It depends on what the song sounds better with, and how you want to play it anyway. It could be played as thumb on beat 1, 3 fingers simultaneously on beat 2, then repeated for the 2nd half of the bar. Don't get too hung up on '...
3
It's up to you!
If you're playing some song fingerpicking style, then you're the one making up the fingerpicked part anyway. Therefore, you can do it as fast or as slow as you want. You could play the whole thing twice per bar, once per bar, four times per bar, et cetera. If you're the one making up your part, why worry about how it's "supposed" to be ...
2
Basically you would count it like that:
2
I'm not sure if you've found your way with lyrical/poetic meter yet, but if you haven't, I suggest practicing syllabic verse poetry, and then after you've gotten the hang of that, accentual syllabic verse poetry. Writing syllabic verse poetry will train you to gain the ability to write lines of lyrics that have exactly the desired amount of syllables. The ...
2
According to my composition teacher, all time signatures are basically in groups of two or three . In groups of two, the first beat is strong and the second is weak. In groups of three, the first beat is strong and the second two are weak. In 4/4, since it is a multiple of two, the first and third beats are strong (though the third beat is less strong than ...
2
Internalizing the beat in non-trivial situations is actually one of the most difficult things that a musician has to acquire.
It's also seen that different individuals develop different internal strategies to achieve that. For example, some people say they feel the beat as a pulse in their stomach, for others it's a sort of visual projection, as if they ...
2
Very best of luck with the exam!
Last resort would be have a chat with your accompanist. They may be able to "conduct" you with their subtle head movements.
Also, have you tried doing those conducting movements yourself as you perform? When I do a long trill (I'm a trumpet player), I might actually move my bell subtly in a 4/4 beat pattern or whatever. I ...
2
If you have two "layers" or tracks with the same loop lengths but a pattern of accenting that is fully or partially offset, perhaps you could say that is an example of syncopation. If you have two layers with similar but offset metres that sustain for a long period of time, I'm not entirely sure why that couldn't be called a polyrhythm.
If the pattern ...
2
Yes, probably. If you're THAT worried about putting labels on things, I'd say that the rhythmic style was a strong factor in deciding what genre a pop song belonged to.
2
If this is really just about a software recommendation, your question is going to be closed as off-topic. But that’s not the only thing you’re asking about. The best way to learn EDM production is by doing a lot of it, and creating a lot of stuff of dubious quality along the way.
It’s not so much about the software as it is the meatware, which is you. If ...
2
So I’ve been searching more than 10 minutes but I didn’t find a really smart explanation!
The most intuitiv picture is the following:
Here in this example are 2 beats of quaters in one bar. You see that the time is 2/4.
2/4 are corresponding to 4/8 or 8/16
in bar 1 we have 4/8 (1/8 rest, 1/8 with a flag and 2/8 tied with beam.
in bar 2 we have a ...
2
When played without an accent on the second 3/4's downbeat, then you're right in hearing it as 4/4 + 2/4 or, more pedantically, 3/2.
That accent may often be omitted because it would distract from the melody, which is more interesting than the straightforward harmony.
Why do "they" still notate it as 3/4? Because how it progresses from teacher to pupil ...
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