Hello and welcome back, I'm Joseph Hoffman,
and in this lesson we're going to practice counting rhythms with pick up notes.
Remember, music is made up of strong and weak beats organized into measures.
The first beat in every measure is a strong beat, and that first beat is called a downbeat.
The word downbeat comes from the tradition of conducting.
A conductor is someone who stands in front of a group of musicians, like an orchestra,
and waves her or his hands to show the beat to keep everyone playing together,
and also to show the dynamics. Like if they want to play really loud they move their hands wide.
To play really softly they'll move their hands small.
Back in the Baroque period, which was the 1600s and early 1700s, conductors would sometimes help
by hitting a staff on the floor on each downbeat.
Over the years though, conductors got a little more subtle and eventually started using a baton
like this to show the beat using patterns drawn in the air like this:
1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
Notice that beat 1 is always a down motion, which is how it got the name downbeat.
Let's check out some rhythms to practice.
Here's a simple rhythm using a 4/4 time signature.
Let's find the downbeats.
We've got a downbeat here on beat 1. 1 2 3 4, and then another downbeat
here at the start of this next measure. 1 2 3 4
Those down beats are the strong beats,
but sometimes a composer may not want to start a piece on a strong beat.
So what do we do then?
Well, the composer can add an extra weak beat at the beginning called a pick up beat.
This quarter note would be a pick up note.
It comes before the first full measure, and that's how you know it's a pick up note.
Now if the downbeat is beat 1,
then we just count backwards to know what beat we're starting on. So this has to be beat 4.
So to count this rhythm we go: 4 1 And notice that I made this a gentle beat
to lead into our first strong beat.
4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 4
Now, some people might be like, oh now we have this extra beat 4,
things aren't balanced now.
Well, what composers will do sometimes to make up for that
is they'll borrow the beat for at the pick up beat from
this last measure.
Now we've restored balance. So this measure only has beats 1 2 3
so beat 4 can belong up here.
Let's try this one together: 1 2 3
4 1 2 3 4 1 2 3 Double bar line means we're done.
Pick up note, and then our first downbeat.
Here's another rhythm example.
What's our time signature?
It's 3/4, which means we have 3 beats in every measure.
So, do we have enough beats here for a complete measure?
No.
This is only 1 beat before this first bar line, which means this must be a pickup note.
So we have our first downbeat here.
Where's our next downbeat?
Here's another beat 1. It's always beat 1 after the bar line, and then where's the next downbeat?
Here, so these are our strong beats, but the composer wanted to start on a weak beat.
So what beat would this be?
Well, the before beat 1 is always the last beat of your measure which has to be beat 3.
So we'd count this 3 1 2 3-& 1 2 3 1 2
This happens to be the rhythm to "Amazing Grace",
and that's why the composer wanted to start with a pickup note
because you don't say 'amazing,' you say 'amazing grace.'
So by starting with a pick up note, it allowed the strong syllables
to fall on the strong beats so it matches the words very nicely now.
Can you count and clap this rhythm with me?
So we'll count 2 beats as preparation, and then we'll start clapping on beat 3.
Here we go: 1 2, 3 1 2 3-& 1 2 3 1 2
Here's another example: What's our time signature this time?
It's 4/4, so where's our first complete measure?
We don't have enough beats here, so we know these must be pickup notes.
This must be our first complete measure.
So here's our first downbeat, which makes it our first beat 1. So,
what's different this time? This time we actually have two pick up beats
with three pick up notes. So we've got to count backwards. Here's beat 4,
this must be beat 3.
So in counting this we'd go 3 4-& 1
Can you try counting and clapping this rhythm with me?
And let's remember that whenever we have a downbeat to give that beat extra strength.
I'll count 2 beats to get us ready, 1 2, and then we'll start on 3.
Here we go: 1 2, 3 4-&
1 2 3-& 4-&
1 2 3 4-&
1 2
Why are there only 2 beats here?
It's to bring balance back to the universe.
Since we had beat 3 and 4 up here we end just with a 1 2 double bar line.
How many beats per measure in this example?
If you said 2 you're correct. That top number will tell us how many beats per measure.
Here's our first full measure. So here's a partial measure. So this would be a pickup note.
It's not even a full beat right?
Here we have an eighth note all by itself. So what beat do we start counting on for this?
Sometimes it's helpful to imagine a full complete measure.
If you can imagine a full measure, we'd have a beat 1, a beat 2, and then this would have to be the &
of beat 2 which is the last half of the last beat before we have our first downbeat.
So to count this, we'd probably use a subdivided beat to count
1-& 2-& 1-&, and then that's our first strong note or strong beat on the downbeat.
1-& 2-& 1-& 2-& 1-& 2-&
Do you remember this?
It's our eighth rest, which gets half of a beat, 2, and then the & of 2 we've got another flagged eighth note.
Can you pause the video, and try clapping and counting this using a subdivided beat.
Count 1-& 2 to get ready, and then start on the & of 2.
Clap this rhythm while you count the subdivided beat, then press play to go on.
Let's try it together this time. So we'll count an empty 1-& 2-&, and then start on the & of 2.
Here we go: 1-& 2-& 1-& 2-&
1-& 2-&
Great job!
For this next example, can you point to our first downbeat?
If you're pointing here, you're correct. That's the first beat of our first full measure.
We know we have 3 beats per measure, so now,
Can you help me figure out what beat we would start counting on?
This one's a little tricky because it both has a partial beat and it goes for more than 1 beat.
So remember, we count backwards from beat 1. Here's our beat 1.
These two eighth notes would take up one full beat,
so what's the beat right before beat 1?
In 3/4 we know this is beat 3,
and then we also need another half of a beat before that.
So this would be the & of beat 2.
So if we're counting an empty measure we'd have: 1-& 2-& 3-& 1-& 2-& 3-&
1-& 2-& 3-&
You'll notice that these beats, again the composer could have started
this as beat 1,
but he wanted, he or she whoever the composer was, wanted these notes to lead into:
a strong beat here.
and these lead in pick up notes also have a fancy word in music called anacrusis.
If you want to sound really fancy to your music friends,
don't say pick up notes say, oh the anacrusis of this song has 1 and 1/2 beats.
Anacrucis, try saying it.
Now let's try clapping this rhythm together while we count the subdivided beat.
I'll count 1-& 2 and then we'll start
on the & after 2.
Count with me and clap. Here we go 1-& 2-& 3-&
1-& 2-& 3-&
Great job with the anacrusis leading into the downbeat.
Great work today practicing with pickup notes, or anacrusis if you want to sound fancy.
For more practice with pickup notes and downbeats,
be sure to download, print and complete the theory pages for this lesson.
Thanks for learning with me, and happy practicing!
All right class, and this is a time signature, and this is a bar line,
and these are pickup notes.
What'd everyone do that for?
Well, you did say pick up notes. So that's what they did. Pick up note!
Ah! Scuba!
Anacrusis!