Here's an example of some music using an upbeat:

Upbeats can look quite "wrong" at the beginning of a piece of music — as in the example above, where the time signature is 3/4, but the first bar appears to only have one crotchet beat, rather than the expected three crotchet beats. Whenever you see an incomplete bar like this at the start of some music — that's an upbeat!

Upbeats don't have to occur at the beginning of a whole piece of music; they can occur naturally anywhere in the music, any place where a phrase doesn't begin on the first beat of the bar.

You will often hear musicians saying "let's play from bar 12, with the upbeat", for example, in which case they would play from the beginning of a phrase that begins just before bar 12, but not from the beginning of bar 11, otherwise they'd just say "play from bar 11". An upbeat, therefore, always lasts for less than a full bar.

The upbeat ending trap

A very easy trap to fall into happens when you've got to complete a piece of music that begins on an upbeat, because the final bar of the music will be incomplete. The final bar will be less than the length of a full bar by the duration of the upbeat at the beginning of the music.

This can lead to some odd-looking endings, but rest assured, it is correct to do this (and you'll be penalised in your music theory exam if you don't follow this convention).

The next example is the end of the piece that began with the first example:

Look how the final bar only has two crotchet beats, rather than the expected three. This is because the duration of the upbeat was one crotchet, so the final bar must be short by one crotchet, and as I'm sure you know:
3 – 1 = 2

Upbeats with rests

You'll sometimes see upbeats containing rests.

Let's say the upbeat to a phrase in 4/4 consists of a run of three semiquavers. This would leave the final bar lasting three beats and a semiquaver, and looking quite unconventional and tricky to count: imagine if the last note of the piece had to fill the bar, how would you count that? ("1, 2, 3, 4 and quick, off!")

Unconventionally notated upbeats

Additionally, the count-in will be awkward, so in situations like this you'll see extra rests at the beginning to fill out a complete beat. In our example, you'd see a semiquaver rest, then the three semiquavers; the final bar would therefore need to be three crotchets long, and much easier to count ("1, 2, 3, off"). Rests in the upbeat are often felt as a quick intake of breath before you play, which is very natural.

A more conventional notation

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