I've always been a huge fan of Tammi Terrell's "I Can't Believe You Love Me" but one thing that's always driven me nuts is trying to figure out what was going on in those breaks where everything sort of stops, then you have just the bass and guitar playing what sounds like an oddly-timed riff. I could never figure out if this was some kind of 3/3 or 3/4 or whatever time signature if my ears was just making it more complex than it really was.

I asked a friend who is a musician and really knows about writing music and time signatures and he said it just sounds like a 4/4 time, nothing unusual. Well, now that really confused me, because since there is no drum going, that part seems to just get me disoriented as far as where the beat is supposed to be. This has been going on for years.

Tonight, by coincidence, I see a YouTube video entitled "Where's The Beat" and it's about the break in Led Zeppelin's "Stairway To Heaven" where there is no drum, just guitar. The poster discusses how nearly every musician and group plays this part wrong because they aren't quite getting where the downbeat is. He then goes on to discuss at great length the difference between an "upbeat" and a "downbeat." Very interesting. Well, I need to watch it a few more times because a lot of it still went over my head BUT, at the same time, something clicked.

I listened to "I Can't Believe You Love Me" and, applying what I learned about upbeats and downbeats, I now think I've figured out my problem is that my perception in the beat is being thrown off because there is no drum to map out the downbeat. I think what's going on during those breaks is the either the bass and guitar is switching up and playing on the "UPBEAT" and then going back to playing on the "DOWNBEAT" or vice-versa. Or, I'm just completely out of my mind on this whole thing!

Yes, this is such a little thing, but it has intrigued the heck out of me all these years. I've never heard a riff like this one anywhere else, and The Funk Brothers play it like they are eating candy. Who came up with this odd little riff- was it spur of the moment or did the songwriters specifically ask for it.