What are the On and Off beats?
I'm very new to music theory and I've seen this taught two ways:
The On beat is on every 1 and 3 beat while the Off beat is every 2 and 4 (in 4/4 time)
The On beat is on every Strong/Secondary Strong and Weak beats in the bar (S w s w in 4/4) while the Off beat is any note in between these.
I personally think the first one is right while I think the second is actually talking about the Up and Down beats but it's kinda unclear to me.
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On and off beats really exist on a spectrum, and determining whether beats 2 and 4 are on or off is really a question of tempo.
If the music is fast enough, we can start to feel the 4/4 time in (as we say) a large 2, meaning that 1234 starts to sound like 1&2&. In such cases, 2 and 4 are definitely heard as off the beat, with 1 and 3 being on.
But if the music is slow enough, 2 and 4 are so far away from their surrounding beats that we really perceive them as being beats in their own right; as such, we then view 1234 as all being on the beat, and it's the material in between those beats (the &s, for instance) that are viewed as off the beat.
This is one reason why using the strong/weak terminology can be more helpful: beat 2 will (basically) always be viewed as weaker than beat 1, but sometimes beat 2 is on the beat and sometimes it's off. In other words, the on/off dichotomy is often too black and white, but the strong/weak spectrum is much more malleable.
It seems that these definitions can change depending on the school of thought that the speaker learned from and from regional variations.
For example (in my experience) people in the classical world say:
"downbeat" to mean beats 1 and 3,
"upbeat" to mean beats 2 and 4, and
"off beat" to mean the beats directly between all four beats
But in jazz they would say:
"downbeat" to mean beats 1 and 3,
"backbeat" to mean beats 2 and 4, and
"and beat" to mean the beats directly between all four beats
I think it probably depends somewhat on the exact rhythmic feel of the song. The system of time signatures in music doesn't fully specify the relative strength of each beat, and 3 songs each with a 4/4 time signature might have very different feels to them. Compare a slow rock ballad to a house or techno piece, and a reggae song - all typically 4/4, but very different strength patterns to the beats.
The On beat is on every 1 and 3 beat while the Off beat is every 2 and 4 (in 4/4 time)
I would say this would be 'correct' (i.e. an appropriate and non-confusing thing to say) for a style of music that has a strong 1 and 3 - think of a classic rock beat, for example.
The On beat is on every Strong/Secondary Strong and Weak beats in the bar (S w s w in 4/4) while the Off beat is any note in between these.
I think that idea - of having 4 'on' beats in a 4/4 bar - would be correct in a '4 to the floor' type of rhythm - think of a house or techno piece (though in this context it might not be correct to say that the pattern is 'S w s w' - it might be more 'S s s s').
I agree with Richard's answer too, so I hope I've not contradicted it!
Don't confuse 'The on beat/off beat' with 'on/off the beat'. The first refers to the strong and weak beats in each bar. In 4/4 one and three are 'on beats', two and four are 'off beats' The second refers to notes which aren't positioned on ANY of the beats.
Paradoxically, you're most likely to hear 'off beats' mentioned in reference to swing and rock styles where the 'off beat' is played louder than the 'on beat'.
Here's an audience which insists on clapping the 'on beat' being skilfully manoeuvered into clapping the 'off beat' instead.
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