Hi again,

I am currently working on the Music Theory in Practice Book Grade 3.

On page 8 they ask "Look at the accidentals, then name the key of each extract."

According to the Syllabus, Grade 3 asks of "... all major and minor keys up to and including FOUR sharps and flats ...".

Exercise 4 (a), however, starts obviously with a B. Thus, I would assume, that it is B major. But B major, to my knowledge, has FIVE sharps.

Now, I am utterly confused. Is it, according to "look at the accidentals" meant to be E major, because conveniently, D does not occur anywhere in the given line (and Grade 3 asks only of 4 flats or sharps?), so I cannot correctly assume, which it should be.

What do you think?

i don't have the book you're referring to, but in general, you can't assume that the starting note is the key of the piece. using the ending note would be more accurate, but it's still not a guarantee.

I think you must be using the new MTIP which I think was published last year. I've only got the edition published in 1990 and I've got the 2005 reprint but it's different from your edition.

Do what they say and look at the accidentals instead of looking at the starting note. Test out which keys would work according to the accidentals that you've got. If more than one key fits, up to 4 sharps/flats, then look at the first *few* notes and see if they fit within the arpeggio of a particular key.

That's how I would do it anyway, but I might be wrong

Yes, that's what I would be advising my students to do.

Don't forget too, that this could be a minor key, particularly if you have a mixture of sharps/flats/naturals within the example. If the piece starts on B and has C#, F# and A# it could be B harmonic minor. Or C#,F#,G# and A# could be the ascending melodic minor.

The B could also be an anacrusis. The first note/arpeggio would then be in the second bar (or the first complete bar).

It says "Up to and including four sharps/flats." This doesn't mean every example will have that amount in them. In the old books, they have examples in D major which only has two sharps. There definitely won't be more though...so the example would not be in B major.

I haven't got the book to hand either, but one of my students has. I'm seeing him on Wednesday, so can tell you more then, unless someone can help in the meantime.

The crucial accidentals to find are the ones furthest round the circle of fifths (so D# in E major) and any that could relate to a minor key (so B# in C# minor which is the relative minor of E major). So if you have several sharps you can essentially ignore the F# as every sharp key will include it so it's of no help. Taking all the accidentals into account, there will only ever be one possible key and the quickest way to get there is as described above.

You cannot assume that the first note, or bar, will be the tonic or even outline the tonic; it just is not a reliable method because composers are not always that predictable. More reliable, as River says, is the final note - but not, of course, if the extract is taken from the middle of a piece.

Do you have a teacher? You may find some lessons helpful as you seem to have picked up a few misapprehensions.

EDIT: I've just noticed the title of this thread and am a bit confused as the whole point of the example you describe seems to be that there is no key signature. The key signature is the collection of sharps or flats at the beginning of a piece, between the clef and the time signature.

It's E Major. The piece quoted does in fact end on an E.

I have the book in front of me...and I can see a D#...the last but one note (if we're talking about the same thing here...page 8 major keys with four sharps or flats).

(To Czerny: the point of the exercise is that they give you the music with the accidentals and you have to say what the key is and rewrite the bars with the key signature).

(Second edit: Did you mean no C#? As there aren't any in that example. My brain went, F#, G#, D#, no Cs at all and A's but not A# therefore it has to be E Major-(brain also knows it's grade 3;-) before I get flammed with a reason that this could be anything else)).

I didn't realise you had to rewrite the bars in addition to naming the key, but from the title it sounded to me a bit like the OP was confusing 'key' and 'key signature'. But perhaps not.

That would make the B at the beginning the dominant which, if it is an anacrusis, is quite common.

Oh wow, what a response.

The piece is from J.S. Bach, Partita No. 3 for unacc. violin. It starts with a B and

@ stetenorve, does not necessaryly end on E, unless you have the complete partitur of the piece at hand. Just the line in this example ends on E.

@ all asking for the accidentals: In the line of the book are the following accidentals: G#, F#, D#, thus consisting of a minimum of 4 sharps: F#, C#, G# and D# (to put them in order - although C# doesn't occur in the written line).

@river: The end note does not usually occur in these examples, so I can't use it as a hint.

It's definetely no minor key, since there are neither flats nor naturals.

And - why on earth else does Google exist and why didn't I think of it earlier - it is definetely E-major.

So, since I not yet came around the term anacrusis, I will look it up next, unless one of you would like to enlighten me?

And, thanks guys for the help!

An anacrusis is also known as an "upbeat". It's the last beat of the bar. So, in 3/4 time, the piece could start on a crotchet (for example). The first *full bar* is the bar with all three beats in. At the end of the piece (assuming there are no repeats), you would find a minim (or equivalent) to complete the three beats from the bar with the anacrusis.

The main thing is not just to get the right answer, but to understand how you got there

Does it make sense now? Do say if it doesn't!

The examples for the exams fairly often do end on the key note. I used to work out what I thought the key was and then look at the last note as a confirmation. 9 times out of 10 it was the key note.

You won't have google in the exam, so unless you are just using it to check the answers instead of asking a teacher to mark it, google is a bit irrelevant.

Thanks @skylark. The only thing, I still don't get is, how it can start on a B. Is there a rule for this? Like, has it to be a dominant or subdominant?

The notes are really only useful as a check, to give you comfort that you've found the right key from the accidentals.

You would expect the opening few notes to be in the key you've identified, and for at least a couple of them to be the notes of the arpeggio (do you learn about tonic triads and dominants/subdominants at Grade 3?).

In this case, you've decided (correctly) that the key is E Major because of the fact that it's got F[C]GD sharps. The arpeggio of E Major is EGB. The starting note is B which is a good sign, and you'll hopefully find that the next couple of notes are also in the arpeggio (although not necessarily). As I said above though, these notes should just be used as a check to give you extra comfort. The main thing is that the accidentals point to the key, not the notes.

If the opening notes are not in the key you think it is, then it should ring alarm bells and you should double check because at Grade 3, I think they normally give straightforward examples.

The opening notes are particularly useful if the accidentals fit more than one key - the opening notes would probably determine which key you would choose.



(Note, I'm just a student so would teachers please correct me if I'm wrong, but I find it helpful myself to write out my understanding - there's nothing like explaining it to someone else to throw up any weaknesses in your own understanding!)

Really? Perhaps a more accurate statement would be that the arpeggio of E major is E, G sharp and B.

I am not a teacher either but a mere performer.

@Skylark: Grade 3 covers tonic triads, but not subdominant/dominant-that is covered in grade 4.

Why could a melody in E major not start on a B? Although it might be the most common starting note, there is no requirement for a tonal melody to start on the tonic - it could really start on any degree of the scale, or indeed on a note which isn't in the diatonic scale at all ...

Minor keys are not always signified by flats or naturals (not sure they're ever indicated by a flat, actually). The seventh (and sometimes sixth) notes are (usually) sharpened, which can be indicated by a natural, a sharp or even a double sharp.

If the key signature is four sharps, the minor key possibility would be C# minor which includes B#.

Please get a teacher!!


Very sorry DC, but this is not correct. The anacrusis simply refers to a bar which does not start on the down-beat. It is not necessarily the last full beat (although of course it can be) and can be more or less than this.

I'm getting a bit confused now about anacrusis.

I thought I'd learnt that it was a single note in the first bar of a piece, leading to the first full bar. And its synonym was an "upbeat". However, when DC posted, I read it as meaning that it was the last note in any/every bar. So I looked it up in Dolmetsch and it says "a note or group of notes, that may occur before the first strong beat". A group of notes? So is an anacrusis a note, or a bar?

Edit. And if it means "upbeat", how can it refer to a bar, which by definition also contains downbeats

it's the group of notes (which could be just one note), not being enough to fill an entire bar, which occurs at the beginning and "leads in" to the real start of the piece. it's often one beat, but doesn't have to be. (in traditional music, it's most commonly two notes which are half the length of the beat, meaning the anacrusis makes up one beat; but it can be longer or shorter.)



a bar with a one-beat anacrusis doesn't have any downbeats; it only has one beat, at the end of the bar, which is by definition an upbeat. if the anacrusis had 3 beats in 4/4, then it would be up-down-up.

Ok, first of all, a note is not necessarily a beat - it can be less than a beat, exactly one beat, or more than one beat.

The anacrusis is the entirety of any incomplete bar at the beginning of a piece of music (or sometimes, I would think, before a repeat sign if that is not placed on a barline). It therefore, by definition, does not contain a down-beat. So of course it can be a group of notes, or it could be just one - or it could be two (or more) tied together to sound like one. In other words it's anything and everything other than a complete bar.

There will be an upbeat in every bar (apart from perhaps the last one if there has been an anacrusis at the beginning!) which is where the conductor will beat moving his (or her) baton upwards - well of course they could be doing pretty much anything, but in theory that's the movement they'll be making.

Does that help?

Yes - an anacrusis can be of varying lengths - for example, it could be three quavers...and a piece can have an internal anacrusis as well as one at the beginning.

Dalcroze does a lot of work with anacrusis/crusis/metacrusis that really helps with the understanding and feeling of these aspects.

how about an example?

here's a typical one-beat anacrusis (first bar):



both the A and B sections have an anacrusis; since they're included in the repeat, the last bar of each part has one beat missing to make it fit.

and here's a three-beat anacrusis:



this time the B part doesn't have one, so the repeat has to be altered so the 3 beats are only dropped the first time around, and at the end of the B going back to the A.

these are both anacruses (sp?) because they don't fill an entire bar.

Yep, no problem with that.



This is the bit I'm not sure about. Let's say the time sig is 4/4 and the first bar has 3 beats in it, which happen to be 3 crotchets. The 4th crotchet is an upbeat, yes? The 3rd crotchet can't also be an upbeat, but I guess it's not a downbeat either. I've never learnt anything about conducting... what would the 3rd crotchet be called then if not an upbeat or a downbeat?



Yes, it's corrected my misunderstanding that an anacrusis was just a single note, thanks



Will edit in a minute to ask Cyrilla something.... (see post below)

with an anacrusis, you're taking time from the start of the bar, not the end of it. if your 4/4 anacrusis is three crotchets, think of it as rest-crotchet-crotchet-crotchet, not crotchet-crotchet-crotchet-rest. the last crotchet is still the last crotchet, therefore an upbeat, even though the first beat of the bar is missing.

Would it be an internal anacrusis if for instance, in 4/4, the first 3 beats were rests?



river - thanks for posting that, I'll study it and see if I understand it

Yes, the 4th crotchet is the upbeat in this example. The 3rd beat is a strong beat, but no, not a down-beat as this term (as far as I'm aware) refers only to the 1st beat of the bar. I'm not sure that it has a particular term (perhaps in Kodaly?) but in simple conducting, the movement would be 'out' (so right, if you're right-handed), as in down-in-out-up.

This means that, when conducting, regardless of whether the number of beats in the bar is 2, 3 or 4, the down-beat is always 'down', the up-beat is always 'up' and the penultimate (if it isn't also the 1st) is always 'out'.

Any clearer?

Yes, no problem there.

Thanks for posting the examples. Your first example is what I'd always thought was an anacrusis. I didn't realise that the group of notes in Example B was also called an anacrusis. That's great - I'm happy now



Yes thanks I'm going to think of it as a cross-beat unless anyone has a more correct term for it



PS. Sorry for the digression Lemontree - hope you've found it interesting though!

My first flute teacher helped me to remember and understand the word 'anacrusis' by telling me that the syllabes 'ana' were an anacrusis to 'anacrusis'.

Well that's basically correct, as a bar which begins on the downbeat (i.e. a complete bar) is in fact a 'crusis'. The only slight snag to that explanation is that there aren't necessarily two beats / syllables before the down-beat in an anacrusis. I imagine that the 'ana' is the same prefix as found in 'anachronistic' and 'anagram' (not so sure about that last one!).

The term anacrusis is also used in poetry.

Yes.

In fact, the example that river posts is full of somewhat hidden internal anacruses, because many of the phrases start with one (well, that's how it seems to me!)




No, it doesn't - not as far as I'm aware, anyway!

Yes, but they needn't be rests. Think of 'Happy Birthday', where each phrase starts on the up-beat, for example.


Am I right in thinking that syllables such as 'ta ta ta-ti ta' (sorry if I've got those wrong!) refer solely to the length of the notes and not its position in the bar? If so, I guess it would be possible to invent consonants that do relate the beat, but that would be horrendously complicated.

(So if b = 1, c = 2, d = 3, g =4 then 'ta ta ta-ti ta' becomes 'ba ca da-ti ga'.)

Ok, I'll get my coat...

i haven't heard of an internal anacrusis before, but if i understand its meaning correctly, then it's very common in this sort of music (particularly in English music, where we tend to emphasis 1 and 3, it makes it a bit more interesting... in Irish music they do it a little differently, so it's not quite as common there.)





hm.. i didn't realise this, so i'm sorry if i gave a slightly confusing explanation of how the anacrusis falls on the beat earlier.

I am avidly reading - and learning

*holds coat out for Czerny to put on*

Yes - you're right, the rhythm syllables (usually 'ta' for a crotchet, 'ti-ti' for two quavers) do not refer to the position in the bar, only the note length.

And - yes, it WOULD be horrendously complicated to do as you suggest !!!






I would think that being able to identify internal anacruses would be essential in order for a performer to play/sing in phrases and with the emphasis in the right places. They do seem to be very common in folk music from the UK.

right, i know the idea (a phrase that starts before the beat), i just didn't know it had a name ;-)

when i'm actually playing, i don't think about bar lines or ancruses, just phrasing; sometimes it takes me a while to work out what goes where when i'm writing down something from memory.

But it would be possible...

Sorry - was wrongly taught quavers as 'ta-ti' in primary school and it's stuck!

Sorry skylark..I've read my post number of times and can't see what I've written to cause the confusion. I thought this is what I was trying to put over. Obviously not very well...

The point is that an anacrusis is not necessarily the last note, or the last beat, in the bar.

Er - no, not 'wrongly', just 'differently'!

The original French time names for two quavers is ta-té - Kodály simplified this to ti-ti, although some people use te-te...

If you read on, you'll see it was mostly what Dolmetsch said about it being also a *group* of notes which confused me


I'm now clear that an anacrusis is the note or group of notes which doesn't begin on a downbeat at the start of a piece.

Re the internal anacruses, I'm not sure that I've grasped that. In Carolan's Dream which river posted, I can see the anacrusis at the start of each line. Are there other anacruses in that piece?

Yes - it would seem that most phrases start on the last beat of the bar - the most obvious one being after the minim/crotchet in bar 4. If you sing it through you will feel where the phrases end.

So with an *internal* anacrusis, it doesn't have to be an incomplete bar? It's the weak notes leading to the start of a phrase? If you tell me that's correct, I'll be a happy bunny

Oh! I thought I'd got it wrong. It must be ta-té I'm remembering from the dim-and-distant past.

I'm not surprised ti-ti is often avoided...


It can't be an incomplete bar if it's internal! (Hope you're a happy bunny now! )

Um - no, the anacrusis belongs to the phrase - it's just a 'weak' start to the phrase, the emphasis naturally being on the first beat of the first full bar/next bar if it's an internal anacrusis. It's often more obvious than in river's example - eg a phrase may end crotchet, crotchet, quaver - then there's a quaver rest - and then a crotchet or two quavers anacrusis. The rest just makes it more clear regarding the start of the next phrase.




Actually I don't avoid it - unless you pronounce it 'titty' *cough* you don't have any problems, and it's much easier to say than te-te...

Point taken!



Yes... of course...




Yes! I've got it at last Thank you for your patience everyone and for explaining

And thanks for not complaining about going off-topic Lemontree - by the time I thought we should have started a separate topic, we'd gone too far down the line here. How much more useful it is though to talk about it in depth rather than go by a single line in a dictionary

I've never quite understood the big problem with going 'off-topic' (within reason, I suppose, and of course there have to be some boundaries and this is a music forum, etc.) - after all, it's something that happens all the time in real-life conversations and usually nobody minds. Am I missing something?

I guess I'm going off-topic simply by making this comment (which sort of enhances my point, as it does follow directly from the previous post!). Sorry...

I wouldn't go at all by what the starting note or end note is, purely on the accidentals....... (to get back to the earlier point of the thread.....)

but this doesn't work for natural minors, or modal tunes.