Chapters in Development
Drumbeats
Key Takeaways
- The is common to most pop drumbeats. The backbeat is an accented articulation on beats two and four in quadruple meters, usually played by the snare drum.
- The kick drum is often .
- Cymbals—hi-hats, ride, and crash—often play regular pulses at the beat, beat division, or beat subdivison level.
- Common drumbeats other than the include , , , and .
- Quadruple meters are by far the most common meter in pop music; simple triple is the next most common. A simple triple drumbeat in pop music will often have a snare hit on beat three.
Drumbeats are the rhythmic cornerstone of many genres of popular music, including rap, rock, and jazz. Sometimes a drumbeat is performed on a drum kit, sometimes it’s sampled from an existing recording or programmed into a sequencer or DAW (digital audio workstation). In this primer, we’ll learn about features of drumbeats that are common to many styles of music. We’ll also learn how a few particular drumbeats are associated with specific genres.
The Snare Drum and the Backbeat
Most popular songs are in a meter (usually notated by transcribers as [latex]\mathbf{^4_4}[/latex]), and most popular music grooves in this meter have a . The backbeat refers to beats two and four, usually played by the snare drum. Example 1 shows how a snare-drum backbeat is one layer of the : kick-drum hits on beats one and three alternate with the snare backbeat, complemented by a regular eighth-note pulse in the hi-hat. The same alternation of kick and snare hits underpins the “boom-bap” beat found in much golden-age hip hop.
Example 1. The standard rock beat with kick on beats one and three, a snare backbeat on two and four, and regular eighth notes in the hi-hat.
In many genres the snare backbeat is the most stable of the three layers. Below, we’ll see how the kick and cymbal layers can be manipulated to change the character of a groove, without sacrificing the familiarity of the backbeat. Two common ways that songwriters and producers modify the backbeat are:
- Giving the backbeat rhythm to instruments other than the snare drum
- Speeding up or slowing down the backbeat rhythm enough to alter its relationship to the tempo of a groove.
Each technique is discussed further below.
Non-Snare Backbeats
The snare isn’t the only instrument that can play the backbeat. In Queen’s “We Will Rock You” (Example 2), the is made with stomping feet and clapping hands instead of drums. In hip hop and electronic music, it’s common to replace snare hits with hand claps, or to layer both together to create a variety of backbeat timbres (as in Examples 8 and 9 below).
Example 2. A backbeat without drums in Queen’s “We Will Rock You” (1977).
In many jazz subgenres, including swing and bop, the drummer might play a backbeat on the hi-hats by closing the two cymbals together with a foot pedal. The result is usually a short, sharp, percussive sound, similar in many ways to the timbre of the snare drum (see Swing Rhythms, Example 1). This hi-hat backbeat was the precursor to the snare backbeat. Example 3, from Ella Fitzgerald’s rendition of “Fascinating Rhythm,” shows a hi-hat backbeat on beats two and four (and one eighth-note anticipation). Notice how the snare in this example plays a syncopated rhythm, whereas the hi-hat is much more regular.

Half- and Double-Time Feels
When the tempo is 80–160 , the rhythm of the kick and snare in a will likely be understood as the or . Such drumbeats can be said to have a , in which the drums and tempo work together to establish a clear groove that would be easy to dance to. Sometimes grooves use the same alternation of kick and snare to suggest a tempo above 160 bpm or slower than 80 bpm. These fast and slow drumbeats might still support the tempo for a groove, if that tempo is also felt as notably fast or slow. Other times, however, the rest of the groove still suggests a tactus of 80–160 bpm despite the unusually fast or slow tempo. In such cases, we use the terms and to describe the misalignment of the drums with the rest of the groove (Example 4).

The main groove of Metallica’s “Trapped Under Ice” has a double-time feel (see Example 5). The snare suggests a backbeat alternating at a tempo of about 320 bpm—a pace at which it’s uncomfortable to count “1 2 3 4,” let alone move your body. Headbanging fans are more likely to lock into a half the speed of the backbeat (160 bpm). The disagreement between the unusually fast drums and the slower (but still fast!) tactus gives this song a frantic, driving energy. Later in the song (2:00), the drums shift to a normal feel.


Miley Cyrus’s “Wrecking Ball” has a tempo of 120 bpm, right in the middle of the preferred tempo range for a tactus. In the song’s chorus (0:40), the slow backbeat would suggest a tempo of only 60 bpm—too slow for most listeners (see Example 6). If we instead keep time at the 120-bpm pulse, we hear a half-time drumbeat. The tension between the slow pacing of the drumbeat and the normal tempo of the rest of the song gives the chorus a lush, dramatic feeling.
Dembow
The snare drum doesn’t always play the backbeat, and one non-backbeat snare pattern is particularly noteworthy. Dembow refers to both a genre of music and a rhythmic pattern common in that genre and in others (e.g., reggaeton, dance hall). In its simplest form, the drumbeat has a kick drum on all four beats and snare drum playing the last two parts of a tresillo (3+3+2) rhythm. The chorus of Luis Fonsi’s “Despacito” is one example (see Example 7, 1:23).

The Kick Drum
Whereas the snare-drum backbeat is the most reliable feature of a groove, the kick drum pattern is more flexible. As we’ve seen, kick drum played on beats one and three is a common option, forming part of the . Another common pattern is called : the kick drum plays every quarter note, usually alongside a snare-drum backbeat, as in Blondie’s “Heart of Glass” (Example 8), or with no snare at all.

Syncopation is more common in the bass drum than in the snare of pop drumbeats. Example 9 shows the drumbeat of Kendrick Lamar’s “HUMBLE.”, which has a consistent backbeat provided by the hand claps, but plenty of sixteenth-note syncopation in the kick drum. Note that the kick still enters reliably on the downbeat of each measure, despite syncopation elsewhere.

Cymbals
The cymbals also can have varying rhythms in relation to the snare backbeat. The most common rhythmic options are consistent eighth notes or sixteenth notes, though steady quarter notes are by no means rare. Other patterns are also possible, like in “Heart of Glass” where the hi-hats mostly play only the offbeats (see Example 8 above). The hi-hats are the most common cymbal used to keep this pulse in many genres; the ride cymbal is also common; the crash cymbal is an option used most often for slower-paced pulses and/or in more aggressive sounding grooves and genres.
The next two examples show the range of options for cymbals in drumbeats. The first is from Xiao Zhan’s “Made to Love,”[1] with a consistent sixteenth-note pulse in the hi-hats (Example 10; you can also hear a snappy non-snare sample for the backbeat and, starting around 0:10, a syncopated kick drum). The second example is from Dream Theater’s “As I Am” (see Example 11). The song’s first drumbeat (at 0:55) is a backbeat with quarter notes on the and downbeats marked by the crash cymbal. The next groove (1:14) speeds up a little and shifts to a normal feel with the crash playing eighth notes.


Compound Quadruple and Simple Triple Drumbeats
Most pop music is in meter, but the next most common meters in most popular music genres are and .
In compound quadruple time, the is simply adjusted for the new three-part beat division: the kick drum still plays on one and three, the snare still plays the backbeat on two and four, and cymbals (or some other instrument) still articulates the beat division, as in “If You Don’t Know Me by Now,” by Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes (see Example 12).[2]
Example 12. A slow compound quadruple drumbeat in Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes’s “If You Don’t Know me By Now” (1972).

In time, it isn’t possible to alternate kick and snare hits of equal length in each measure. The most common approach is to delay the snare “backbeat” until the third beat of every measure; this is what happens in Paramore’s “That’s What You Get” (see Example 13). After an intro with exuberant “3 e + a” fills on the snare, the drums settle into the groove transcribed below. The kick-drum rhythm keeps things interesting while delaying the snare hit. The second verse of this song (0:27) is also notable: the drums shift to a (as if in quadruple meter) while the rest of the band keeps playing in the triple meter established up to this point.
- Brennan, Matthew, Joseph Michael Pignato, and Daniel Akira Stadnicki, editors. 2021. The Cambridge Companion to the Drum Kit. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- de Clercq, Trevor. 2020. “Rhythmic Influence in the Rock Revolution.” In The Cambridge Companion to Rhythm 182–95, edited by Russell Hartenberger and Ryan McClelland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
- Geary, David. 2019. “Analyzing Drums and Other Beats in Twenty-First Century Popular Music.” Ph.D. diss., Indiana University.
- Ohriner, Mitchell. 2020. “Rhythm in Contemporary Rap Music.” In The Cambridge Companion to Rhythm 196–213, edited by Russell Hartenberger and Ryan McClelland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Coming soon!
Media Attributions
- Fascinating Rhythm © Scott Hanenberg
- Feel chart © Megan Lavengood is licensed under a CC BY-NC-SA (Attribution NonCommercial ShareAlike) license
- Trapped Under Ice © Scott Hanenberg is licensed under a CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) license
- wrecking-ball © Scott Hanenberg is licensed under a CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) license
- dembow © Scott Hanenberg is licensed under a CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) license
- heart-of-glass © Scott Hanenberg is licensed under a CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) license
- humble © Scott Hanenberg is licensed under a CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) license
- spotlight © Scott Hanenberg is licensed under a CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) license
- as-i-am © Scott Hanenberg is licensed under a CC BY-SA (Attribution ShareAlike) license
- thats-what-you-got © Scott Hanenberg
An accent on beats 2 and 4 of a quadruple meter. Backbeats are common in jazz and pop styles.
A rhythmic phenomenon in which the hierarchy of the underlying meter is contradicted through surface rhythms. Syncopation is usually created through accents and/or longer durations.
A simple drum pattern in which the kick drum is played on beats one and three, alternating with the snare on beats two and four, while eighth notes are played on a closed hi-hat. (This description presumes a 4/4 time signature.)
A drum pattern where the backbeat is played twice as fast as usual (that is, on the second eighth of each beat, rather than on beats two and four).
A drum pattern in which the backbeat is twice as slow as usual (that is, the snare hits occur only on beat three of each measure, instead of beats two and four).
A drumbeat in which the kick drum is sounded on every beat.
A drumbeat in which the kick drum plays on every beat, while the snare plays the last two parts of a tresillo rhythm.
A meter with four beats, each of which divides into two. The top number of a simple quadruple meter will always be "4". 4/4 (common time, 𝄴) is the most common compound quadruple meter.
Beats per minute. A standard unit of measurement for tempo.
A pulse in music to which one can tap or clap along. A grouped hierarchy of beats forms a meter.
The perceptual equivalent of a "beat"—the pulse that you might tap your foot or bob your head along to. A tactus is felt, not notated.
In contrast to a double-time or half-time feel, a normal feel occurs when the backbeat is aligns with beats two and four of a quadruple measure (that is, the expected timing of the backbeat).
A meter with four beats per measure.
A kind of crash cymbal with an especially bright, forward, and splashy sound.
A meter with four beats, each of which divides into three. A time signature for compound quadruple will always have "12" as the top number. 12/8 is the most common compound quadruple meter.
A meter with three beats, each of which divides into two. The top number of a simple triple meter will always be "3". 3/4 is the most common compound triple meter.
A division of a rhythmic unit (one beat, two beats, one measure, etc.) into three almost-equal groups, in a 3+3+2 pattern: for example, dividing a half note into two dotted eighth notes and an eighth note.