What does anacrusis mean in music?

Notation & reading

Anacrusis

Greek, "striking up" · Also: pickup, upbeat

An anacrusis, or pickup, is one or more notes that precede the first full measure of a phrase, falling on a weak beat and leading into the downbeat.

A phrase that begins with a pickup is shaped toward the downbeat that follows it: the pickup is the approach, not the arrival. Playing it as though it were the strong beat is one of the most common phrasing errors, and it makes a melody sound like it is limping.

On a string instrument the pickup is usually taken up-bow, so that the downbeat arrives down-bow with the natural weight of the bow behind it. This is the practical reason for the up-bow and down-bow conventions students first meet.

When a piece begins with an anacrusis, the final measure is often shortened to match, so that the two incomplete bars together make one whole one. The opening pickup measure is not numbered.

Measure: A measure, called a bar in British usage, is the span of music between two barlines, containing the number of beats set by the time signature.
Up-bow and down-bow: Down-bow moves the bow from frog to tip and is marked with a bracket symbol; up-bow moves from tip to frog and is marked with a V.
Phrase: A phrase is a complete musical thought, typically four or eight bars ending in a cadence, and it is the unit that shapes how music is performed.
Time signature: A time signature is a pair of numbers showing how many of a given note value fill a bar; their grouping indicates the metre and main beats.

Every term in this glossary is taught in context somewhere in Arco's curricula, on the staff, on the keyboard, and on your own fingerboard at the same time.

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