Talk:Anacrusis

Baseball simile
The baseball simile added by User:Saxophone143 is misleading, because anacrusis is a metrical concept based on the idea of a "beat" or "accent"; a pitcher's windup is a tensioning, not a thrust.

The breath-taking simile is also misleading, because an anacrusis is part of the score. An instrumentalist would equally well take a breath before beginning a piece with an "explicit" anacrusis.

Ultimately it seems to add little insight to the question as to why a tentative, metrically defective foot or measure can function as an effective introduction.

I would vote for reverting the addition in question.

--Ziusudra 02:35, 23 April 2006 (UTC)

Merge proposal
I strongly disagree with the automatic redirection of 'upbeat' to 'anacrusis'. No sane musician is going to say 'anacrusis' if they mean upbeat. Also, upbeat has a specific musical meaning or meanings, which are not quite the same as 'anacrusis' in poetic rhythm. For example in conducting, upbeat is not a note or an intake of breath but (a gesture indicating) the last beat in a bar - whether or not anything audible happens there. There may be an analogy between upbeat and anacrusis but it is vital to keep them distinct. Otherwise we may get a big muddle, exemplified by the confusion over intakes of breath and baseball pitchers. The baseball analogy is also confusing in itself.

--Tdent 11:20, 24 April 2006 (UTC)


 * Also note anacrusis has a distinct (linguistic) meaning in phonology/intonation studies.
 * 71.77.7.167 01:15, 25 September 2007 (UTC)

but an anacrusis is an upbeat...none the less —Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.24.81.103 (talk) 22:12, 11 December 2007 (UTC)


 * An Anacrusis is NOT an upbeat. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 144.134.97.2 (talk) 10:06, 28 April 2008 (UTC)

Does anyone have any sources to support either position? Hyacinth (talk) 07:25, 27 May 2008 (UTC)

Music Meets Literature
I completely agree with the redirection to the term "anacrusis." Anacrusis is defined by the Oxford Dictionary of Music as "Unstressed syllable at the beginning of a line of poetry or an unstressed note or group of notes at the beginning of a musical phrase." This by definition links the literary concept to the musical concept, which given the strong historical connection between spoken text to chant to plainsong, etc. The term "anacrusis" is common amongst music scholars, and should not be relegated to the term "upbeat" when its roots are much deeper and more profound.

Brigg1st (talk) 20:25, 29 July 2008 (UTC)

"Up-beat" listed at Redirects for discussion
An editor has identified a potential problem with the redirect Up-beat and has thus listed it for discussion. This discussion will occur at Redirects for discussion/Log/2022 October 21 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Shhhnotsoloud (talk) 11:45, 21 October 2022 (UTC)

"The Tyger"
The poem is not (whatever the source may say) in "trochaic tetrameter". The lines quoted (except the last) have seven syllables. Trochaic tetrameter requires eight-syllable lines: "Tyger, tyger, burning bright-o / In the forest of the night-o". If any named meter is intended, I expect it is iambic tetrameter with catalexis, partly because the natural rhythm of English is said to be trochaic, and this poem always (in contrast to that) has stresses on the final syllables. Harfarhs (talk) 20:23, 29 August 2023 (UTC)