What is a Downbeat, What is an Upbeat, What is an On-Beat, What is an Off-Beat, What is a Backbeat?

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

Shoutout to Patrick who commented to ask about this on my last video, and highlighted that I’ve never made a video about these terms despite using them a lot, and spending a large amount of time talking about them with students. “Everybody Wants To Rule The World” vids here... How to play the groove: kzbin.info/www/bejne/d3ScZ5iamNqYbrM Full song playthrough: kzbin.info/www/bejne/q6aXcmeHfpakgsU 1000+ free drum videos for you at kzbin.info - 25k subscribers and 6 million views on KZbin 🥁 If you’ve enjoyed these videos or found them useful, please consider supporting my channel via my “Buy Me A Coffee” page here: www.buymeacoffee.com/mikebarnesdrums, You can support will a single donation - or sign up as a monthly member for a personalised practice plan, ongoing drum support, members’ videos, notation and practice-alongs for tutorial videos, a complimentary Zoom session and more. Recent interview I did with Taryn Arnold from Buy Me A Coffee about the amazing way this channel is supported by its viewers: kzbin.info/www/bejne/joitoYx9gNVrqZI

[@poorme1art]

Not a drummer, but this was one of the most clear videos on upbeats and downbeats I seen. Also, I love the sound of 16ths backbeats.

[@patrickjames1080]

Excellent, thanks for breakdowns Mike. You're a legend!

[@mohammadshadfar9288]

English is my second language and I'm translating music terms into English. this video was helpful to me, thank you so much

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

Great! Really glad it was useful :)

[@Irys1997]

Perfect, exactly what I needed, thank you!

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

Cool, thanks for watching 🙏🏻👊🏻

[@rejimathewphdlcswreat-expr5328]

Amazing Lesson - taught with generosity and joyful musicality. Thank you so much...

[@nightly522]

Thank you for posting this, really helps

[@gavinvonmeyer3746]

I've been 'feeling' music my whole life, so much that I aspired and still do to become a music producer/writer... But feeling it alone, left me in the dark, hence I am on a mission to understand the building blocks of giving life to what I 'feel' and turning it into life, via 'understanding' all the required music and essential theory and production techniques... And it is liberating learning such I tell ya, and they the two notions of 'feeling' and 'understanding' of the music definitely create a super synergy.

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

Thanks for watching!

[@RSNDRUMS]

You taught me the Stairway fill. I will trust you with anything lol.

[@keithlutman5611]

Good one Mike. You are very eloquent.

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

Cheers Keith!

[@bowsprite0]

Thank you thank you thank you !!! I simply need to count & think it out, see it written it out sometimes, but friends keep telling to ‘feel’ it, and i would feel lost, alas. Thank you so much for validating my counting it out!!!

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

Cool! Both methods are great and have their place. Counting something tricky can be a way in to eventually feeling it :) Thanks for watching.

[@davideleouet]

Great explanation !! Thanks from Paris… I wanted to translate these terms in french for my comprehension and to explain to drum students. Merci 🙏🏻

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

Cheers! Thank you for watching.

[@freethinker79]

Great tutorial! Feeling/Understanding = two sides of the same coin

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

Well said!

[@andrew007s]

Thanks a lot for making the feeling better :)

[@markielinhart]

Great explainer, thanks Mike 🇦🇺✌️

[@animalcracker2159]

Super helpful-thank you!

[@tonystark-qg8wd]

Thank you so much 🤩

[@watchingfahey]

Much love mate really helps :)

[@DavidMains-pf6zo]

Awesome dude.

[@wannabeadrummer]

Great stuff Mike, good to know the terminology meaning.

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

Cheers Paul!

[@taranazare2633]

Thank you

[@CarlosNaranjoMUSICCHANNEL]

Cool explanation!! What I don't understand is why practically all drummers say 4/4 with triplets in all parts of the bar when the triplet is an irregular rhythmic figure, this means that it breaks the regular rhythm of the beat RETURNING/SHARING to/with the regular rhythm of the beat (example, when in 4/4 with binary subdivision appears the triplet in one or more of its parts, it does a contrast between the regular and the irregular). If you make everything triplets it would no longer be irregular but the opposite, so for that there are already regular ternary subdivision bars (6/8, 12/8...). I know that some will say that it is the same thing but I don't see the point. It's like saying that a C major chord is C-F flat-G because it sounds the same as C-E-G

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

Yes I prefer to say "12/8" feel rather than "triplet feel", but plenty of drummers/musicians would say the latter. Thanks for watching.

[@CarlosNaranjoMUSICCHANNEL]

Yes I understand that when the error it becomes the rule, it's easier to work with it than to fight it ;)

[@beeceee151]

Thnks dude!

[@5naxalotl]

thanks. i really needed to hear this put this simply. i play other instruments, and my formal knowledge of rhythm is complete rubbish

[@jungmou56]

I am a guitar player but I love your content so so much!you always can explain the term in a easy way !support you mate!

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

Cheers Lucas!

[@muwalakoala]

thanks this was helpful

[@anzatzi]

Back beat! This finally makes sense! Rock 4/4 reverses the traditional on-off roles!

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

💡👏🏻

[@JanithNissanka]

This is Awesome bro

[@deans-drumshed5945]

Great help Mike 👍

[@AashishJhaMusic]

Thanks

[@roop298]

How would a backbeat against a none backbeat rhythm sound?

[@sallyhubert9027]

Thanks Mike, really helpful

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

Cheers Sally!

[@foil1695]

Great content! Which beat would be off beat if it’s a 6/8 bar?

[@DennisBergDrums]

Awesome video! I actually never heard or used the term on-beat although it makes sense as the opposite of off-beat. But I feel like most musicians use the term downbeat for what you would describe as on-beat right? Also a lot of times I hear just every number referred to as a downbeat? But as you said most every musician will know what you mean.

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

Yep. my experience is also that some musicians will use "downbeat" to mean on the beat and "upbeat" to mean off-beats - but worth bearing in mind this isn't their dictionary definitions. Thanks for watching.

[@viksoply6404]

Nice video!

[@heisenberg5747]

It needs practice to combine feel and transcriptions together..still very important in my opinion. Personally I have days where I don't care and just try new things and feel it write it down if it's good and so on..on other days I write it down with actual notes and more "professional" it helps to understand it better. In the end music is a language and to understand it completely we need to be able to speak and write it (imo)

[@Tom_Tulpe]

Great!!!!...Thank you...:-)

[@후니드럼-g3z]

Nice!!!

[@DavidBaumgarten-c8x]

Awesome! Thank you. I guess you can say every upbeat falls on the last off beat of the bar and the down beat falls on the first on beat of the bar? Back beat. I always think roll over beethoven. I always found it funny or odd that in a 4/4 tune, as a random group, white people clap on the on beats and blacks on the offs, or 1/3 and 2/4. Does this go back to nursery rhymes or hearing polka. Lol. I'm usually tapping both toes and a heel with the left foot following the bass and right doing fills. How about people who clap on all the beats? Gets tough on 16ths. But keeping in common time or even 3/4, is there a right or wrong way to clap so long as you're hitting the beat? I know with vocals and guitar, I like to come in a little late. Or sometimes early. It's a mood changer in a tune. I gotta hand it to drummers and percussion musicians. Although I grew up seeing a drumset in the living room, and would play them when my brothers band wasn't around, by the ti.e I was 87 or 8 and could start learning, drums, although the most basic, seemed the most difficult to learn. At least to play RIGHT. thanks for the great vids!!!

[@cf7697]

V Helpful

[@EverybodyStayCalm]

What?! I've been using the terms "down" and "up" beats incorrectly for decades. I thought downbeat was playing on the numbers, and upbeat was playing on the "and". Example: bass player plays semi-muted 1, 2, 3, 4 while a semi-muted guitar, banjo, mandolin etc. play only on the "and"🤦‍♂

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beat_(music)#Downbeat_and_upbeat Thanks for watching! And my experience is that lots of musicians do use "downbeat" and "upbeat" in the way you describe, but really they're just "on" the beat and "off" beats. Cheers.

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

PS "Downbeat" and "upbeat" correspond to the hand of the conductor, not the musician playing their instrument (e.g. a guitarist strumming or a drummer playing a hi-hat) - I think that's where a lot of the confusion comes from.

[@EverybodyStayCalm]

Thank you @@MikeBarnesDrums I haven't played in an orchestra since elementary school, but I do seem to recall that in 4/4 the conductor's motion was down, left, right, up, down. Who knew all of that waving of batons had meaning??? Now I have to do a Google search on other timings.

[@royhadisubroto9340]

Such a great video. Where is the on and off beat in a 3/4 timing?

[@controladormidi]

thanks for your enforce.. but... it´s not clear...

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

Thanks for watching. Any particular terms which are not clear?

[@DagUTube]

I don't understand this video. You're in front of a drum kit and don't use it, beating air 90% of the time

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

This is a theory lesson, so more talky than most on this channel. And I play on the kit where it's relevant. Thanks for watching!

[@mykimikimiky]

13m long video, no instruments.

[@MikeBarnesDrums]

And? Thanks for watching.

[@herrietako]

This is too much information for a beat that maybe can be useful terminology for drummers but not for a general music theory. The issue that the paradox of the drummer is that need to beat downfall all the beats. And that is a paradox. You did at the beginning, you beat down the upbeat and then you described it as going up. You say it is the last beat of the bar. Imagine a beat like an oscillation , that in one point beats with more velocity, more energy, so normally going down, because the gravity but not necessarily going down, which correspond when the music starts. and the rest of the movement of the oscillation is out of that beat, going to the next beat. you can make an oscillation with contents of 2 or 3 of 4, does not matter even the figuration because that is relative. so the first beat of that group you will beat physically and not the rest. the rest you will do it in a movement that is going up, but you say them. So your body oscillates going up from that first beat and you say the rest of the content which also are beats. beats that you say not beating them, but in the direction of going up. you name down and up and off and back to rhythmical patterns, which that can become crazy. you as drummer need to beat down to those contents of beats that are going int the up direction and that is the paradox you face. In the reality it is more simple, there is an oscillation like the wheel of a bicycle, there is one moment which correspond with the beginning, which takes you more energy, more velocity, and that corresponds to the beginning of the music clocks, and the rest are out. then you can color those content with different instrument, you can make dynamics, with different rhythmical patterns but, if you start naming those beats in terms of patters that will become mad and crazy. It is more simple that that, there is one BEAT, the first of the group and the rest goes UP in that oscillatory movement. Does not matter if there are 1 or 2 or 3 oscillations in a bar. Every oscillation you can take it from its beat or from its upbeat. You can make 4 oscillation and mark in the 2nd beat and the 4th. but not because it call them OFF. or you can make 2 oscillation and mark the second one that is in one oscillation, which is in the UP, in the time that is going UP the oscillation. You dance the oscillation going down and going up. the first will be, like a hammer when you beat something, like when you beat the snare with the sticks and the rest will be in the moment going up Remember, the paradox is for you when you need to beat down all the content of the oscillation. But the best for you is to make a dance with your body, slightly feeling that all body is going down in the first and slightly movement going up your body, even your are beating down the rest . All the musicians face with this paradox because even for sing and to make a sound you need to do it sending out the voice, or pressing a key of the instrument, all the mechanics of the instruments are to press down or blow... but you need to position those rhythmical sounds in the position that correspond them on the oscillatory movement. So, the madness and the contradictions and the interpretations about this down, up, off, back will be gone