Shaping a musical line is one of the basic aspects of expression. Every note has a role within a gesture or within a longer phrase. It helps to think of each note as either a pickup, a beat, or a rebound.
This is not an new idea. Dalcroze for one certainly talked about it. It is a good way to think about rhythm and how notes relate to each other, and helpful when it comes to clarifying the shape of a musical line or gesture.
Any beat may have one or more pickups, one or more rebounds, or both. Reinterpreting a rebound as a pickup or vice versa can change the entire feeling of a gesture. Also, I encourage my students to make fewer beats in general, by turning some into either rebounds or pickups.
Try playing around with these ideas in a phrase you are working on, especially finding ways to re-interpret. The first step of interpretation is seeing choices and possibilities. Try hearing a pickup as a rebound instead and see what happens to the phrase.
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