STRONG BEATS AND WEAK BEATS

Beats 2 and 4 are the children of beats 1 and 3.

You can-t snap your fingers, clap your hands,

or play the hi/hat on 2 and 4 unless you are feeling 1 and 3

John Riley, The art of Bop Drumming

THE STRONGEST BEAT OF THE MEASURE

Our brain is always trying to achieve the maximum result without wasting resources, which is why we tend to categorize and avoid chaos. When faced with the sound of a metronome, we often instinctively do not accept it as an infinite constant but begin to want to count these beats, scan them, and number them. To do this, we group the beats, and the beginning of the group becomes a privileged temporal reference. In music, these groups are called measures¹.

The start of each measure is one of the strong points of a piece. Our expectation is focused on this point.

TWO AND THREE

With groups of two or three beats, as in meters of two or three beats per measure², the further we move from the main accent at the beginning of the measure, the weaker the other beats within the measure become. This creates a clear internal hierarchy of strong beats and weak beats in each meter.

>> VERY STRONG

// WEAK

/ VERY WEAK

OTHER METERS

Two and three are the building blocks for deciding where the strong and weak points of measures are. For example, if we have a meter of five beats, it could be interpreted as 2+3 or 3+2, and the hierarchy of beats within the measure will follow accordingly, as seen in the previous paragraph.

SYMMETRIC METERS

In cases where the meter can be divided in two, the accent at the start of the measure will be stronger than the accent at the midpoint.

SUBDIVISIONS

The start of the measure is not the only strong point of a piece. For instance, if we take a quarter note and divide it into four sixteenth notes, these sixteenth notes will have a hierarchy similar to that of the meter shown previously: >>, //, >, /.

HYPERMETER

Not only do subdivisions reflect the dynamics of the meter, but larger structures such as half-phrases, phrases, and periods do as well. A measure rarely exists in isolation; it is almost always part of a larger temporal organization, also endowed with strong and weak points. This macrostructural perspective is fundamental for understanding the direction and form of a piece.

HOW TO USE STRONG AND WEAK POINTS

As musicians, we have some freedom in deciding which beats to accent using accentuation techniques³. Arbitrarily accenting strong and weak points generates rhythm. Emphasizing weak points does not cancel the effectiveness of strong points; on the contrary, as in genres like funk, it can highlight them through contrast. However, if every instrument in the piece aligns to a different meter, the metric reference disappears; to keep the meter perceivable, at least one significant musical element must make it explicit.

SCIENTIFIC PERSPECTIVE

This tendency to group is supported by numerous experiments on the phenomenon of entrainment. When listening to a regular pulse, such as a metronome, neural activity shows periodic peaks that align not only with the base pulse but also with its multiples and submultiples⁴. These peaks reflect the hierarchical organization of musical time in the brain: simple temporal ratios are stabilized more easily, while more complex ones are perceptually weaker⁵.

EXAMPLE

Here the text emphasizes the strong points, and even the meaning of the words reinforces the musical effect. The result is a clear and functional message in every respect.

CONCLUSION

A professional musician must have a deep awareness of this hierarchy within the established meter, which also includes subdivisions and hypermeter. Choosing to accent a strong or weak point can drastically change a piece and, over the years, has helped shape the patterns that form the foundation of entire musical genres and cultures⁶.

NOTE:

1. Lerdhal e Jackendoff, Generative Theory of Tonal Music Pag. 41

2. In Spanish, “meter” and “measure” are the same, i.e., compás.

3. Among these: pitch modulation, orchestral density, timbral richness, agogic accent, etc.

4. Submultiples are associated with subharmonic frequencies and emphasize the strong points of the section being analyzed. Multiples are associated with the harmonic series and generate further subdivisions.

5. Edward Large, Neural networks for pulse perception in musical rhythm

6. Enric Herrera, Teoria Musical y Armonia Moderna vol 1, Pag 64