Back-beat

**red7flag** · Dec-30-2005, 2:19pm

I keep hearing reference to back-beat. I think it is using another string as a drone. Would this be correct. Is that string often fretted? Is there a easy way to get that sound? Thanks.
Tony

**Clyde Clevenger** · Dec-30-2005, 2:24pm

Get two Bill Monroe box sets, listen to them both twice, then play along, just rhythm, with them twice. Then you will know.

**SternART** · Dec-30-2005, 4:39pm

No droning involved......more like a rhythmic thing. Think
one/and/two/and/three/and/four.....well playing your chord
or note on the numbers would be on the beat....and playing
your chord, or note on the "ands" would be the backbeat.
Adds drive and syncopation to the music, in jazz usually it
would be the drummer's role....in BG rhythm it is the mandos
role. But to confuse things you can also play melody that might
emphasize the beat, or back beat too.....

**glauber** · Dec-30-2005, 4:53pm

On a fast 1-2-3-4, it might be emphasizing the 2 and 4. Reggae is a good example of a style with strong backbeat.

If you don't believe me, believe Wikipedia!

**ShaneJ** · Dec-30-2005, 6:27pm

The back beat, as said, is both the 2 and 4 beats - the ones that a drummer will hit the snare drum on usually. Contrast this with the 99% of white people that, while clapping along with a song, will clap on the 1 & 3 beats. Just kills me - and I'm about as white as it gets.

Maybe that's why Celtic music accents the 1 & 3 beats - a bunch of Anglos again.

As said above, contrast Monroe's playing (or any bluegrass) to a Celtic tune. Listen for the accented beats. They'll be opposite. Ricky Skaggs' Road to Spencer is a good contrast in itself. They start out with a Celtic feel/groove (or lack there of) and then switch to the same melody played with a bluegrass style (back beat groove).

The Lightnin' Hopkins tunes I'm listening to right now (country blues) are GREAT examples of back beat emphasis too!

**levin4now** · Dec-31-2005, 8:20am

Listen to a recording (maybe not a blinding fast one) and listen for the bass plucking away - it should be on the 1 & 3 beats and the mandolin will chop on the 2 and 4. (I still get confused on this when "thinking" about it, but if we were to be chopping on the "ands" of all four beats, that would be pretty fast on even a slow to moderate tune it seems to me.) In 4/4 time, you will chop twice per measure.

**red7flag** · Jan-01-2006, 9:21am

Duh me, what I would call the up beat, I knew that. I was thinking of something else. Thank you all for your responses. What I was asking about using a drone. Would that be sort of simple cross picking? I am a bit slow, so thanks in advance.
Tony

**jmcgann** · Jan-01-2006, 9:44am

The "up beat" is really the "and" when you count 1 and 2 and 3 and 4.

The backbeats are beats 2 and 4.

The "ands" are emphasised in syncopation (playing on the "off beats"). To me, this is what ska (a Jamaican substyle of Reggae, more or less) is- the rhythm guitar plays upstrokes on those "ands".

The Truth About Crosspicking

A drone is usually just called a drone. Sometimes if you include an open adjacent string with your fingered notes, you get that cool old timey sounding drone. The drone note can be fingered, too.

"Double stops" are two notes at a time. Technically, you need "triple stop" to call it a chord, but that's just semantics really- you can imply chords with single lines but playing the notes of a chord melodically (that's called harmonic content, not to be confused with harmonics). Easy, right?

It's confusing, ain't it?

**red7flag** · Jan-01-2006, 10:48am

Thank you for the post and the link jmcgann, both were very helpful. I am trying to expand my picking repetroire. I am still pretty new and don't even know the nomenclature as my first post demonstrated.
Tony

**jmcgann** · Jan-01-2006, 3:43pm

Don't sweat it, Tony, there's a lot of lingo but the main thing is to have a good time as you are learning. It's great that you are thinking about this stuff!

**Peter Hackman** · Jan-02-2006, 2:00am

Re crosspicking (referring to jmcgann's link):

to the extent that I cross-pick at all
(mostly on guitar) I use a third pattern, with the
melody or characteristic notes on top.
Not sure about pick direction,
but I suppose it's U-U-D on strings 1-2-3.

Added: it's actually D-U-U, which may seem awkward
to some; but it does work!

**red7flag** · Jan-03-2006, 3:32pm

I am interested, there is a series of articles on cross picking by Mickey Cochran on the cafe, but it suggest a dudu approach even to the forward roll (using bango terminology). #I tried the ddu approach also. #The difference I could see was more stylistic and had a different feel. What are the relative merits? #Thanks
Tony

**GTison** · Jan-03-2006, 6:34pm

Back beat. I think of western swing style like Bob Wills' San Antonio Rose or something of similar speed where all the rhythm instruments (Guitar, drums, Piano) are on the 2nd and 4th beat and the bass notes are alone on the 1 and 3. Back beat....beat....beat.....beat...

**red7flag** · Jan-03-2006, 9:26pm

The ddu up would create more of a synchopated sound than an udud I from what I can tell.
Tony

**Peter Hackman** · Jan-04-2006, 1:55am

Originally Posted by (red7flag @ Jan. 03 2006, 16:32)

I am interested, there is a series of articles on cross picking by Mickey Cochran on the cafe, but it suggest a dudu approach even to the forward roll (using bango terminology). I tried the ddu approach also. The difference I could see was more stylistic and had a different feel. What are the relative merits? Thanks
Tony

ddu is eaiser, also gives a more floating feel.

**Jeroen** · Jan-04-2006, 6:18am

I am going to be a pain in the neck and disagree with a bunch of posts here. I hope that a different view will be appreciated

I think syncopation in crosspicking is mainly melodic and emerges from 3 note patterns over 4/4 bars, not the pick directions and/or articulations.

I don't think that ddu gives a more floating feel under all circumstances. I think that in a swinging context uud and ddu can sound way too even to be smooth. Fast ddu and uud crosspicking will result in very evenly timed 16th note rolls. "Alternate" dudu rolls will allow the player to add his personal swing.

That difference may be the reason why John McGann suggests so boldly ("the truth...") to use the term "crosspicking" only for the uud and ddu techniques to set them apart from alternate picking. In 1979 Andy Statman attempted to define crosspicking strictly as "Jesse's way" of (...uud...) picking rolls, which would exclude not only dudu roll techniques, but also the ddu approach used by many guitarists.

I think the term is much more useful to define all cross string flatpicking in repetitive roll style patterns, usually emulating fingerpicking patterns on guitar and banjo.
Jesse McReynolds can be very satisfied with the label "McReynolds roll" for his marvellous and highly original technique.

**red7flag** · Jan-04-2006, 6:45am

What I found, and it maybe because I am a rookie at it, is that by doing ddu (which is really new to me) I emphasize the up note, thus making it sound a bit synchopated. #As I have been playing guitar in the "alternate" way for a long time (blame Steve Kaufman), it tends to be more even. #I find this true in the banjo too. #When you do the square roll, also called the double thumb roll, (read here alternate) as it is based on a pattern of four notes, it tends to fit in nicely in 4/4 time. #When you add the forward roll (read hear ddu), it is based on a pattern of three notes, then three, then two, or the like and tends to create a natural synchopation. #I hope this makes it a clear as mud.
Tony