hey, welcome to 12tone! if you follow any music folks on twitter, you may have noticed a bit of
a kerfuffle a couple weeks back. for those of you who missed it, the whole thing started when
music theorist Dr. Robert Komaniecki posted the chorus from the song Roll Out, by Ludacris, along
with what seemed like a pretty simple question: where's the downbeat? here, check it out. (bang)
got it? ok, I'm gonna talk for a little bit to confuse the copyright bots and then I'll give
you another chance. this time, really focus on feeling that downbeat. move your body if you can.
ready? go. (bang) I suspect at this point the answer seems pretty obvious to you,
and if I was a better YouTuber I'd probably ask you to put that answer in the comments to
increase this video's engagement, but I don't have time for that. what would you say if I
told you that, no matter what you said, a lot of really good musicians think you're wrong?
(tick, tick, tick, tick, tock)
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this debate, nicknamed Ludagate, went on for days, and participants largely fell into one
of two camps. the first group heard the horn line as starting on the downbeat,
so two full bars would sound like this: (bang) while the second group heard that
same line starting before the downbeat, so two bars would actually be this: (bang)
there was also a third group that heard the word "roll" as the downbeat, like this (bang)
so if that's what you heard you're not alone, but most people heard one of the first two, so
I'm gonna focus on those. I'll try to present both cases as fairly as possible, but full disclosure,
I heard the offbeat version first. I was able to train myself to hear it either way,
and I'll get into how I did that a little later on, but if you see any offbeat bias creeping in,
that's probably why. if you want to hear an argument from an onbeat proponent,
Studio Sensei did a great video about this too, I'll put a link to that in the description.
so how do we figure out which one is correct? well, there's a neat little trick for determining
the metric structure of a song: first, you look for the snare, and then that's it. that's
the whole trick. in approximately 99.9% of all modern popular music, the snare or an equivalent
mid-range percussion sound falls on beats 2 and 4, collectively known as the backbeat.
we get two snares per bar, and together those snares orient us, like a rhythmic compass pointing
toward 1. the problem here is that if this is the quarter note, then Roll Out only has one
snare every 4 beats. our compass is broken. or… demagnetized? I think that's how compasses work.
so what do we do about the missing snare? well, that's kinda the whole problem,
and the two main interpretations solve it differently. in the offbeat version,
the snare lands on 2, which is part of the backbeat, so people who hear this version are
effectively inserting an implied snare hit on the word "out" to complete the pattern. (bang)
the onbeat version, on the other hand, puts the snare on 3, which isn't a part of the backbeat.
except… yeah, it is, it's just in half-time. this means the drums
are playing as if the tempo is half of what it actually is, so each beat takes twice as long.
if we take a basic drum groove (bang) and double the length of all the notes (bang)
we see that what was originally beat 2 has been pushed back to 3,
and the original 4 is pushed all the way to beat 3 of the next bar. this makes beat 3 a kind of
half-time backbeat, and most of the time, if we only have one snare per bar, it's there.
this brings up one of the first main distinctions between the two camps:
tempo. we said there's only one snare per bar, but that's only true if this is the quarter note, and
not everyone thought it was. some listeners heard the entire thing in halftime, like this: (bang)
and if that's what you're hearing then the onbeat version is the only one that makes any sense.
it puts the snares on 2 and 4 where they belong, while the offbeat version puts
them on the 8th notes after beats 1 and 3, and that's just not where snares go.
pretty much everyone who heard it at this slower tempo agreed with the onbeat version,
while people who heard the faster tempo seemed to lean toward the offbeat one instead.
there's also some other indications in the drums, most notably the kick.
the kick actually does a lot of little flourishes here, but broadly speaking,
it follows a 2-bar pattern, which we hear a basic version of at the start of the song: (bang)
and this is where things get confusing. you hear those double-kicks? (bang) they create
a sense of landing on the second attack, and you're most likely to see something like this
setting up beat 1. so where do they fall? well, that's the problem. the two emphasized kicks
are three beats apart, with each of them landing on one of our possible downbeats.
in the offbeat version, they set up beats 1 and 4 of the second bar, and in the onbeat version,
it hits bar 1, beat 1, and then bar 2, beat 2. either of those is plausible.
that said, all in all, I think it's probably true that if you just listen to the drums,
you're most likely gonna hear the onbeat version: after all, the half-time backbeat
isn't an uncommon feel, and while we can add in an implied snare to make the offbeat version work,
it seems likely that if the snare was supposed to be there, it would be. but of course,
there's more going on than just the drums. the other main feature of this
beat is the horn line. (bang) this is actually a sample from the song Yaye Boy, by Africando.
maybe if we look at it in its original context, that'll help us work out what it's doing? (bang)
yeah, no. I'll put a link to the whole song in the description,
but in context it's pretty clear that this horn line is syncopated. it's not starting
on a beat at all. Timbaland flipped it when he produced the track for Roll Out.
so why bother bringing it up? 'cause it sounds cool. it's a good song, you should check it out.
but for our purposes, we're gonna have to look at the melody. both camps agreed that this was in the
key of D minor, probably because the first four notes outline a D minor triad: (bang)
but the eagle-eared among you may have noticed that the D itself is actually the second note,
played a beat after the line starts, and a lot of people felt like this was the crux
of the issue. I mean, I don't, I think it's slightly more subtle than that, but we'll
get to my theory in a bit. the argument here goes that the melody starts with 5 going to 1,
which is a sound that most modern listeners will recognize as a very strong resolution, and since
this moment feels resolved melodically, we're more likely to hear it as resolved rhythmically too.
that all makes sense, and I definitely think it's a part of what's happening, but, again,
I feel like there's something deeper going on here. you see, I'm a vocalist by training,
so when I listen to a song, my ears aren't drawn to the drums or the horns, they're drawn to the
vocal performance. it's instinctive, I can't help it. my first concern is identifying what
the singer's doing so that I can replicate it if necessary, and if you listen to Ludacris's
delivery here, he's landing pretty hard on that second note. I think it's most obvious
in this line (bang) where he sort of slides off the word "so" and then locks in on "much",
but he does something similar every time, and this, more than anything else, is why I
find the offbeat version so compelling. it's not just the melody, it's the way he interprets it.
and I think there's some pretty good evidence that this is,
in fact, the main culprit, thanks to another observation from the thread:
a lot of people who really struggled to hear the onbeat version in the chorus,
myself included, found it a lot easier when they listened to the verse instead. (bang)
now, the verse still has the horn line, so the melody is still there. the only thing that's
changed is Luda's delivery. he's switched from singing along with the line to rapping around it,
and since his flow keeps changing, it's easier to look past it and focus on other metric cues like
the drums instead. this is actually how I trained myself to hear the onbeat version: I started the
song in the verse, found the pattern there, then just kept counting it as I moved into the chorus.
actually, there is one other thing that happens in the chorus: the addition of this rapid-fire
synth line. (bang) there's a lot going on here and not all of it is rhythmically important,
but there's a couple moments that stand out to me. first, the line starts quiet and low, then
jumps up to a more prominent high part: (bang) which hits on beat 1 of the offbeat version. from
there it builds to a climax, hanging on a high D: (bang) on beat 1 of the onbeat version. we're off
to a great start so far. after that it comes back in on the next beat (bang) then it ends with this
resolution two beats later. (bang) this gives us four total accents: in the offbeat version,
they're beats 1 and 4 of bar 1, then 1 and 3 of bar 2, while the onbeat version has them as bar 1,
beat 2, then bar 2, beats 1, 2, and 4. since the offbeat version is the only one that accents both
downbeats I think that's probably the better reading of this synth part, but ultimately I
could see the case for either one. I'm not sure this line plays a huge role in determining which
version you prefer, but it may contribute to why it's so much harder to hear the other
version in the chorus than the verse: the two interpretations give this line two very different
structural roles, which is yet another thing you have to overcome in order to switch patterns.
another argument that was fairly popular with the onbeat crowd was that the song started at
the beginning of the horn line, which meant the bar had to as well, but I'll be honest, I don't
find this argument particularly compelling, because songs don't have to start on beat 1.
starting before the downbeat is called a pickup, and they happen all the time. like,
check out the beginning of In Da Club, by 50 Cent: (bang) if this song starts on beat 1,
then all the snares, or at least all the clap sounds serving the role of a snare,
are a 16th note after the backbeat. now, if you can convince yourself to hear the song that way,
that's genuinely impressive, but I think a more natural reading is to just say that
this first attack is a 16th note early. we can also find pickups in Jay-Z's Encore
(bang) Lil' Jon's Get Low (bang) Gang Starr's Mass Appeal (bang)
and the beat to 2pac's California Love (bang) although technically that last one has acapella
vocals that do start the song on 1, so up to you if you want to count it. now, am I saying that
pickups are the most common way to start a song? absolutely not. if I had no other information
I wouldn't assume Roll Out used one, so I guess it's technically evidence for the onbeat version,
but I saw a lot of people presenting this as, like, incontestable proof, as if even considering
the offbeat version meant flagrantly ignoring the obvious musical fact that all songs start
on beat 1, and that's just not how it works. even though pick-ups are kinda rare in hip hop, that
doesn't mean any given song isn't allowed to have one, and I don't see how a single transient moment
at the start of the piece is supposed to overrule all the rhythmic information that follows, so
unless you already hear the onbeat version anyway, this isn't gonna make much of a difference.
where it might help, though, is determining artistic intent. what do Ludacris and Timbaland
hear as beat 1? well, I don't know how to get in touch with either of them, but we can look for
clues. like, at the end of the third verse, the drums drop out for a beat: (bang) which
pretty strongly implies that's beat 4, setting up a return to 1, like it would be in the onbeat
version. the offbeat version has this as 3 instead, and hollowing out the middle of the
bar like that seems relatively unlikely. on the other hand, Adam Neely dug up a video of Ludacris
performing this live, and they were dropping the beat for the Roll Out section of the intro (bang)
which would be 3 and 4 in the offbeat version, whereas the onbeat version has it as the extremely
unlikely beats 4 and 1. that said, there's another video where they do the last verse
acapella with just a kick drum every four beats, and that kick, which presumably indicates beat 1,
implies the onbeat version. but also, in Adam's video, Ludacris appears to be
dancing as if he hears the offbeat version. so which one does he think is correct? um…
not sure. I mean, I don't know that it matters: I'm a firm believer in the idea
that the artist's intent doesn't invalidate the listener's experience, so even if his
version is different from yours that doesn't mean you're wrong, but still, it'd be nice to know.
so what does all this mean? well, it'd be pretty easy to turn this video into an argument about
how this sort of rhythmic complexity proves that hip hop is a real art form, whatever that means,
but I'm not gonna do that because it's not necessary. arguing that rhythmic complexity
proves hip hop's value means conceding that if it wasn't complex it wouldn't have value,
and that's a terrible way to think about music, especially when so many of the tools we have for
measuring that complexity are intrinsically tied to the arbitrary musical norms of 18th-century
European aristocrats. no, I don't think this tells us all that much about hip hop,
but it does tell us quite a bit about rhythm. the thing I found most interesting about this whole
discussion was that even though we couldn't agree where the downbeat was, pretty much
everyone agreed that the answer was obvious. I mean, sure, we're music theorists, we know that
pieces can have multiple interpretations, but that's intellectual. intuitively, we all knew
which version was right, from the moment we hit play, and it took serious, sustained cognitive
effort to hear it any other way. it's a great demonstration of just how instinctive rhythm is:
we feel the beat first, then try to find the musical signifiers to justify it, not the other
way around. I can read all the arguments in the world for the onbeat version: heck, I can even
write those arguments down and then explain them to you, but still, when I listen to the song,
none of that matters. I just… feel the beat, and when you put it like that, I think that's amazing.
one of the first hip hop songs I remember hearing was U Can't Touch This, so I was
super excited to see my friend Alex make a video about MC Hammer over on Nebula. let me explain:
Alex is a fellow educational YouTuber, but he's also 18 years old, so whenever he hangs out with
the rest of the Nebula crowd we wind up grilling him on all the pop culture stuff we grew up with
to see what he's aware of, and it turns out it's not much, so eventually we decided to make
a series called Alex Goes Bananas where we take turns showing him bands from the 90s and making
him explain them to people his age. a couple months back I got my turn and taught him about
Rob Zombie. he's also done videos on Will Smith, the Spice Girls, Limp Bizkit, and just last week
Noah from Polyphonic finally turned him on to MC Hammer. it's a lot of fun, and honestly, I learned
some things too. and that's just the tip of the iceberg: there's all sorts of other great videos
on Nebula from some of YouTube's top educators, including Adam Neely, Lindsay Ellis, and Lessons
From The Screenplay, and if you want to check it out we've even worked out an amazing deal where,
if you sign up for CuriosityStream with the link in the description, not only will you
get 26% off an annual membership, you'll also get a free Nebula account for as long as you remain a
CuriosityStream member! that's two sites of great educational content for under 15 bucks a year.
and hey, thanks for watching, thanks to our Patreon patrons for making these videos possible,
and extra special thanks to this video's Featured Patrons, Susan Jones and Jill
Sundgaard. if you want to help out, and help us pick the next song we analyze too,
there's a link to our Patreon on screen now. you can also join our mailing list to find out
about new episodes, like, share, comment, subscribe, and above all, keep on rockin'.