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Sheet Music Digital Lesson #16 - Pick-Up Notes
     

Quite often, the beginning of the song will start with what is called an incomplete measure.

An incomplete measure where there are not enough notes or rests in the measure to equal the top number in the time signature.

Whatever number of beats are missing in the first measure will be "picked-up" usually at the end of the song in the last measure - which will also be an incomplete measure.

Therefore, the number of beats in the first measure plus 
the number of beats in the last measure will equal 1 complete measure.

 

  
   

Did you notice that in the last song we played, "When The Saints", we had a rest at the beginning of the first measure? If we take the rest away, we have an incomplete measure. (it will only have 3 beats) The missing beat is picked up in the last measure of the song. Below is an example of the same song written with pick-up notes!

Notice that we start the measure at the count of 2 instead of 1.