In music what's the upbeat?

Question:

In music what's the upbeat?

Like...the downbeat is the first note in a measure right?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: NO. Most of these people are wrong. The person who said an upbeat is a beat that 'doesn't fit in a measure' is the most correct.

So, like everyone else, let's say we're in 4/4 time. There's 4 beats in a measure. A common type of upbeat will be a stray beat at the beginning of the piece. So you'll have (a beat)/(downbeat)(2nd beat)(3rd beat)(4th beat).

An upbeat doesn't HAVE to occurr at the very beginning of the piece, it could be a new section, but this time, it's more related to phrasing. The musical line will have ended, and you can have an upbeat into a new phrase. While yes, this will typically be on the last beat of a bar (beat 4), saying beat 4 is an upbeat is incorrect.

For your information, beats 1 and 3 are actually referred to as being strong beats, and 2 and 4 as being weak beats.