“It’s not good music, if it doesn’t have a good beat”. What is this statement? What does this mean? If music is relative and it's all good, what is a "good beat"? How dose one create a good beat?

There is a rhythmic pattern common to all mainstream music and in fact most modern music in general. The "1/3 inverted rhythmic ratio" we will refer to it as. It's a ratio where a pattern of 3 rhythmic sounds contain 1 that is 180 degrees out of phase with the other 2. The most simple example is a kick on the beat, followed by a kick on the beat, followed by a clap on the half beat, then the pattern repeats. You can hear that pattern in most every piece of dance music.

All sorts of variations on the ratio are used but the ratio always stays the same: A set of 3 rhythmic elements where 1 of the 3 is in complete opposition time wise to the others. It's the key to making an infectious tune. It makes the feet dance, the head bob and the brain go into a trance like state. It gets the "song" stuck in one's head. Since it is a hard set mathematical ratio, the more music is quantized to a 4/4 time grid (which everything is these days, save maybe classical), the greater the effectiveness of the formula.

The formula is incredibly versatile. You can shuffle the order of the 3 elements, for example: kick on the beat, high hat on the half beat, kick on the beat (repeat).

You can invert the formula. high hat on the half beat, high hat on the half beat, kick on the beat.

You can also mirror it back and forth (which seems to increase it's effectiveness). For example "Kick on the beat, kick on the beat, high hat on the half beat, followed by: High hat on the half beat, kick on the beat, kick on the beat" then repeat the entire thing.

You can have 2 patterns of 3 elements sharing an element to make up 2 sets of the formula. Kick on the beat, kick on the beat, High hat on the half beat, kick on the beat, high hat on the half beat, then repeat.

The formula can be stretched or shrunk over time. you could have a simple snare drum hit on the beat, followed by no snare, followed by a snare on the beat, followed by no snare, followed by snare on the half beat. Even though you have skipped every other beat, overall the ratio between the 3 snare hits is the same.

All of these variations are possible because you can construct such variations while keeping the mathematical ratio the same. 1 of the 3 rhythmic beats is 180 degrees out of phase with the other 2. So long as the ratio stays the same, the formula retains it’s effect. What's more, you can use ANY musical element as a rhythmic element. So there are almost endless ways to implement this trance inducing formula.

Here are some examples:

In this tune, you can hear: hit on beat, hit on half beat, hit on beat (repeat): youtu.be/CAxccK-KgBI

In this example you can hear hit on beat, hit on beat, hit on half beat, hit on beat, hit on half beat (repeat): youtu.be/0neY33G1emQ

In this example you can hear hit on beat, hit on half beat, skip a beat, hit on beat, hit on half beat, skip a beat, hit on beat, hit on half beat, skip half a beat, hit on half beat. All done with vocal timing. He llo, Da ddy, He llo, Mom: youtu.be/_EBvXpjudf8?t=39 Being an older tune though her timing isn't as precise as more modern stuff is but it's still there and much more if you listen.

In this example you can hear most EVERY variation of application of the formula using almost EVERY musical element present: youtu.be/m8oEDrHnmjA As such, it is to date the most instantly addicting piece of music I've ever heard.

From what I have gathered, this 1/3 inverted rhythmic ratio originates from ethnic tribal music and Eastern Caucasian magic ritual. What’s interesting is, since it has become the mainstream standard, people seem to be addicted to this trance rhythm. Music that lacks it, is dubbed “boring”. Music that has it is dubbed as “having a good beat”.

There's a reason things like classical have "gone out of fashion". Classical often uses widely varying time signatures, so you can't establish the 1/3 inverted rhythmic ratio very easily.