Counting Ands

Interesting video. He does mention around the 5:00 mark that many people use “up beat” instead of “off beat”, although it’s not strictly formally correct.

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What he should have said is “guitar players use upbeat” :sweat_smile: Like I mentioned earlier guitar players relate everything to their guitars and don’t realize these terms apply to music in general not just guitar.

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Interesting videos (and topic), thanks for having shared them.

Yes, terminology can be a bit shaky. For example, when the “and” was brought up by @Tbushell, I wanted to point out that the “and” is the off-beat and it is part of the beat, not something separate. So, when he mentioned “the “and of 4” (or 3)”, he stated to think in terms of subdivisions and 1/8 notes, adding another twist to the discussion. That’s why I said that in 3/4 the upbeat is on beat 3 as that includes the hypothetical “and”.

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Apparently, the terms Downbeat and Upbeat do originate from the movements made by orchestra conductors (as I had vaguely recalled):

Seems like these terms are mainly used in Classical circles.

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:grin: Wrt counting 1 + 2 + 3 etc being ridiculous I had to laugh. If you’re a ballroom dancer you learn to count (even more ridiculously) + 1 + 2 + 3 etc. The initial “and” is movement before foot placement (which is on the beat).

That’s interesting …
In musical terms, if there is something preceding bar 1, beat 1, it is often called a pick up, officially called an anacrusis.

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