Playing Pickup Notes & Measures on Bass Guitar

Video Transcript

CASEY CORMIER: Okay. Though we have already encountered this within our playing, we actually have not encountered the written form of it. These are called pickup notes or pickup measure. Basically not all songs begin on the one, when you count one, two, three, four. The melodies do not all begin there. Sometimes it is one, two, three, four, one, two, three [SINGS MELODY], something like that, right? Well, let's looks at something, a melody we already looked at "When the Saints Come Marching In." Just to make it interesting, we will play in C major this time. So, let us take a look over here. "When the Saints Come Marching in." Now, you will notice this first measure here has three quarter notes in it but we are in 4/4 time, so we need four quarter notes usually. Well, the one is implied here, okay? And we'll notice it's C, E, F, G, three, four, but if we are going to count our way into this song then, we probably want to go one, two, three, four, one, C, E, F, G, two, three, four, one, C, E, F, G. So you notice how that works. We don't count one, two, three, four. We have to count with the extra one that we feel here, or at least nod it and understand it. So, we can see pickup notes in all sorts of different ways. There might just be a quarter note; sometimes there might be two. Sometimes there's an eighth note, but the important thing is do not think that there is something wrong with the measure because it's written in this certain way. This is called the pickup measure. It is not full.

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