Illustration of midbar downbeat
midbar downbeat
- Definition:
Many baroque movements bearing time signatures of
4/2, C, or 12/8 contain phrases that begin on the third beat of a measure.
The term mid-bar downbeat refers to the initiative impulse that the beginning
of a new phrase imparts to that beat. A mid-bar downbeat may coincide with an
added beat or a phrase
elision.
A mid-bar downbeat also can arise from
successive downbeats. Mid-bar
downbeats occur most frequently in baroque movements in compound
meters. See Burkhart (1994).
