Finding the Beat: Entrainment, Rhythmic Play, and Social Meaning in Rock Music

Finding the Beatexplores humankind’s ability, propensity, and enjoyment in finding the beat in live and recorded experiences of music-making through the lens of entrainment, the human capacity to perceive a beat and to synchronize to it. Anyone who has attended a concert, gone to a club, or watched a sporting event has witnessed and/or participated in tapping, clapping, or dancing along with a piece, song, or chant. It doesn’t matter who or where you are in the world-as humans we spend a lot of time taking pleasure in matching our bodily movements with a perceived beat.

Drawing upon diverse examples from the North American and British rock repertoire, Nathan Hesselink demonstrates that listeners are gripped in deep, compelling, and socially meaningful ways when musicians play with or against expectations set up by entrainment. Via musicology, music theory, popular music studies, ethnomusicology, and cognitive neuroscience, he illustrates the creative, aesthetic, and participatory pleasure and wonder afforded by our collective ability to find the beat.