Anacrusis
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In poetry, an anacrusis (Ancient Greek: ἀνάκρουσις "pushing up") is the lead-in syllables, collectively, that precede the first full measure.
In music, an anacrusis is the note or sequence of notes which precedes the first downbeat in a bar. In the latter sense an anacrusis is often called a pickup, pickup note, or pickup measure. Western standards for musical notation often include the recommendation that when a piece of written music begins with an anacrusis, the composer, copyist, typesetter, or printer should delete a corresponding number of beats from the written music's final measure in order to keep the number of measures in the entire piece at a whole number. The plural of anacrusis is anacruses (see Ancient Greek grammar (tables)#Suffixes of the nouns of the third declension).
[edit] Examples
- In the song "Happy Birthday to You", the anacrusis forms the Happy and the accent is on Birthday.
- In The Star Spangled Banner, the word Oh in the first line is an anacrusis in both the music and the anapestic meter of the poem:
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x / x x / x x / x x / Oh, say, can you see, by the dawn's ear ly light. . .
- At the beginning of the Beatles' "Yellow Submarine", "In the" is the anacrusis, while "town" falls on the downbeat.
