Anacrusis

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 bar. Western standards for musical notation often include the recommendation that when a piece of written music begins with an anacru... More

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 bar. 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 bar in order to keep the number of bars 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).

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