Marking the beat percussively all the time would be considered vulgar in classical music –that’s what the conductor is doing by waving his arms. If you compare the 1947 revision of Igor Stravinsky’s ballet Petrouchka with the 1911 version, you will notice that he took out much of the percussion – presumably on the mature judgement that he had been over-emphatic in the original score. The Beach Boys’ Pet Sounds album offers a fine example of percussion used in a less obvious way.

Even in a rock song, dramatic effects can be generated by taking out the beat for a few bars. Good examples are ‘Summertime Blues’, ‘Something Else’, ‘Lucille’, ‘My Generation’, Ash’s ‘Goldfinger’, Dodgy’s ‘In A Room’, Metallica’s ‘Enter Sandman’, Led Zeppelin’s ‘What Is And What Should Never Be’ and The Bluetones’ ‘Slight Return’. There’s a wonderful pull-out and re-entry of the drums in ‘Tumbling Dice’. The obvious place to delay the entry of the drums is on the intro, as in ‘There She Goes’, ‘Bittersweet Symphony’ and ‘Over The Hills And Far Away’. ‘In The Air Tonight’ has a long-delayed entry which was the probable inspiration for Preston Hayman’s spectacular snare-drum entry on Kate Bush’s ‘Leave It Open’. You can even bring in the drums on what sounds like a ”wrong” beat, as on ‘Start Me Up’ and ‘Marquee Moon’.

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