I had the Beatles Anthology DVDs playing in the background while I marked today, though I would occasionally look up when they played some archival concert footage. I noticed that the clip from Sweden just seemed...wrong. I started tapping out the beat on the table with my hand and realized that what was bothering me was how the audience was clapping on the beat. (That is, on the first and third beats of a four beat bar of music. Don't ask me to explain what actually means - I can't, for the life of me, tell you.) I can recall reading numerous times that white pop music audiences always clapped on-beat until bands like the Beatles and Stones started appropriating jazz and blues music, but I've never really understood how it is people ever found the on-beat. I tried imitating it and lost it within seconds every time.
2 comments:
I often clap on the on-beat to pop songs. 'Cause I'm just that white!
It's weird, though, isn't it? It's almost like a dialect or language thing. You pick it up like it's natural, but you struggle to master another form of the same general practice.
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