Upbeat (Ger. Auftakt).
1. An unaccented beat or beats that occur before the first beat of a following measure. Also called anacrusis or pickup. In other words, this is an impulse in a measured rhythm that immediately precedes, and hence anticipates, the downbeat, which is the strongest of such impulses. It can be the last beat in a bar where that bar precedes a new bar of music.
2. An anticipatory note or succession of notes occurring before the first barline of a piece, sometimes referred to as an ‘upbeat figure’, section or phrase. An alternative expression for "upbeat figure" is "anacrusis" (from Greek. ana: "up towards" and krousis: "to strike"; Fr. anacrouse). This term was borrowed from poetry where it refers to one or more unstressed extrametrical syllables at the beginning of a line.
3. The upward stroke made by a conductor to indicate the beat that leads into a new measure.
Example
Beginning of BWV736, with anacrusis in red.
Citations
Bibliography
- J.-J. Momigny: La seule vraie théorie de la musique (Paris, 1821/R)
- H. Riemann: Musikalische Dynamik und Agogik (Hamburg, 1884)
- M. Lussy: L’anacrouse dans la musique moderne (Paris, 1903)
- E. T. Cone: Musical Form and Musical Performance (New York, 1968)
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Last updated on Friday May 30, 2008 at 15:57:11 PDT (GMT -0700)
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