In popular music

Popular music

Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...

, half time is a type of meter

Meter (music)

Meter or metre is a term that music has inherited from the rhythmic element of poetry where it means the number of lines in a verse, the number of syllables in each line and the arrangement of those syllables as long or short, accented or unaccented...

 and tempo

Tempo

In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...

 that alters the rhythmic feel by essentially doubling the tempo

Tempo

In musical terminology, tempo is the speed or pace of a given piece. Tempo is a crucial element of any musical composition, as it can affect the mood and difficulty of a piece.-Measuring tempo:...

 resolution or metric division. Thus 4/4 approximates 8/8. It is not to be confused with cut time or odd time. Though notes usually get the same value relative to the tempo, the way the beats

Beat (music)

The beat is the basic unit of time in music, the pulse of the mensural level . In popular use, the beat can refer to a variety of related concepts including: tempo, meter, rhythm and groove...

 are divided is altered. While much music typically has a backbeat on quarter note

Quarter note

A quarter note or crotchet is a note played for one quarter of the duration of a whole note . Often people will say that a crotchet is one beat, however, this is not always correct, as the beat is indicated by the time signature of the music; a quarter note may or may not be the beat...

 beats two and four, half time would increase the interval between backbeats to double, thus making it hit on beat three and seven (counted out of an 8 beat measure, common practice in half time):
1 2 3 4
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
Essentially, a half time 'groove' is one that expands one measure

Bar (music)

In musical notation, a bar is a segment of time defined by a given number of beats of a given duration. Typically, a piece consists of several bars of the same length, and in modern musical notation the number of beats in each bar is specified at the beginning of the score by the top number of a...

 over the course of two.

A classic example is the half time shuffle, a variation of a shuffle rhythm, which is used extensively in hip-hop and some blues music. Some of the variations of the basic groove are notoriously difficult to play on drum set. It is also a favorite in some pop and rock tunes. Two classic examples are the Rosanna shuffle by Toto

Toto (band)

Toto is an American rock band formed in Los Angeles in 1977. The group currently consists of Joseph Williams , David Paich , Steve Porcaro , Steve Lukather , Mike Porcaro , and Simon Phillips . Toto is known for a musical style that combines elements of pop, rock, soul, funk, progressive rock, hard...

 (Jeff Porcaro

Jeff Porcaro

Jeffrey Thomas "Jeff" Porcaro was an American session drummer and a founding member of the Grammy Award winning band Toto. Porcaro was one of the most recorded drummers in history, working on hundreds of albums and thousands of sessions...

 on drums), and "Fool In The Rain" by Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...

.

It is important to realize that while in half time, the feel of notes are chopped in half, but the actual time value remains the same. For example, at the same tempo, 8th notes would sound like 16ths. In the case of the half time shuffle, triplets sound like 16th note triplets, etc. By preserving the tempo, the beat is stretched by 2x.

External links

• http://www.drummerworld.com/Videos/jeffporcaroshuffle.html Video of Jeff Porcaro demonstrating various half time shuffle patterns.