Music is based on melody and tempo, so beats become an important part of a song. For multiple people, it's important to discover the BPM, or beats per minute, of a song. In individual, professional DJs and musicians need to beats per minute test to see how the song will suit other musicians. Dance musicians and dancers themselves require to know the BPM to see how it will appeal to listeners and to dancers, as well as to work out whether or not it's a part of music that you can really dance to effectively. Therefore, knowing the BPM, and in particular, knowing how to calculate it on a manual level, is both necessary and a skill that can help many people involved in music.
Table of Contents
What Are Beats Per Minute in Music?
How Long Is a Beat?
What Are Italian Tempo Markings?
14 Common Italian Tempo Markings
Why Is It Important to Understand BPM?
How to Find a Song’s BPM
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What Are Beats Per Minute in Music?
In the language of music, the phrase “beats per minute” (BPM) is rather self-explanatory: It displays the number of beats in one minute. For instance, a tempo notated as 60 BPM would mean that a beat sounds precisely once per second. A 120 BPM tempo would be twice as quick, with two beats per second.
Whether you're conducting a Mozart sonata or a piece of electronic dance music, BPM is the most accurate way of suggesting a quick tempo, a slow tempo, and everything in between. BPM gets particularly heavy use in applications where musical durations must be completely precise, such as film scoring. BPM values are also utilized to set digital metronomes for the highest level experienced recordings. In fact, some people utilize the term “metronome marking” to define beats per minute.
How Long Is a Beat?
The time that each beat will count on the piece’s time signature. Time signatures with a four at the bottom (such as 2/4, 3/4, 4/4, 5/4, etc.) correspond to quarter notes. So in a 4/4 time, every four beats will accept you through a full measure. Every five beats will take you through a measure in 5/4 time. For tempo beats in time signatures with an eight in the bottom (such as 3/8, 6/8, or 9/8), an eighth note represents the tempo beat.
Sometimes tempo beats correspond with different durations. For instance, if you like to measure your way through a measure of 12/8, you could select a tempo that represents eighth notes (where 12 tempo beats get you through one measure) or a tempo that designates dotted eighth notes (where four tempo beats would get you through the measure).
What Are Italian Tempo Markings?
In some musical scores—mainly in classical music—musicians are provided instructions in Italian. This includes tempo instructions for a bit of music or a special section within that piece. Certain Italian words represent a tempo modification or other information about the speed of the music.
Some Italian tempos are utilized more than others (particularly famous are largo, andante, allegro, and presto), but classical musicians are typically familiar with at least a dozen Italian tempo movements. Contemporary music theory books and musical scores utilize Italian terminology and BPM nearly interchangeably, so it's necessary to develop familiarity with both.
14 Common Italian Tempo Markings
Maintain an eye out for the following Italian tempo markings, which often appear in sheet music.
1. Larghissimo: very, very slow, nearly droning (20 BPM and below)
2. Grave: slow and sober (20–40 BPM)
3. Lento: slow but slightly quicker than grave (40–60 BPM)
4. Largo: the most commonly suggested “slow” tempo (40–60 BPM)
5. Larghetto: still quite slow (60–66 BPM)
6. Adagio: another famous slow tempo, which translates to mean "at ease" (66–76 BPM)
7. Adagietto: fairly slow (70–80 BPM)
8. Andante: a famous tempo that translates as “at a walking pace” (76–108 BPM)
9. Moderato: relatively paced (108–120 BPM)
10. Allegro moderato: moderately fast (112–124 BPM)
11. Allegro: perhaps the most repeatedly used tempo marking (120–168 BPM, which includes the “heart rate tempo” sweet spot, even though most resting heart rates are much lower)
12. Vivace: lively and quick (typically around 168-176 BPM)
13. Presto: the most popular mode to write “very fast” and a common tempo in quick movements of symphonies (ranges from 168–200 BPM)
14. Prestissimo: too fast (more than 200 BPM)
Why Is It Important to Understand BPM?
Musical tempo can be as important an element as the virtual notes and rhythms being played, and no unit of measurement describes various tempos better than BPM. Skilled musicians can hear the words "allegro" or "vivace" and immediately have a sense of what tempos they say. Those musicians should also be capable to hear the phrase "60 BPM, "100 BPM," or "120 BPM" and sense that tempo in their head.
Understanding BPM can also help your songwriting technique. Most of today's famous songs are written in a tempo range of 100 to 140 BPM. For example, "Beat It" by Michael Jackson clocks in at 138 BPM while "Dancing Queen" by ABBA is just 100 BPM. Multiple songwriters consider 120 BPM to be the ideal tempo for crafting a hit. That is the tempo utilized in Cyndi Lauper's "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" and Adele's "Rumour Has It." Meanwhile, multiple hip-hop songs use somewhat slow tempos, which allow MCs to maximize the syllable calculations in their rhymes.
How to Find a Song’s BPM
In the digital age, the quickest and most accurate way to find the tempo of a song is to use a smartphone app that permits users to tap the beat they hear on the screen of their phone. The app explores the pace of the tapping and shows a tempo in BPM. You can also use software that discovers the BPM of a song you have recorded as an audio file (such as an mp3 file or WAV file). You can just upload the song to any number of DJ software programs with a BPM tester function.
Digital audio workstation (DAW) software also features a BPM counter. These programs can explore existing audio files, determine the tempo of the song, and make a click track you utilize for recording other tracks. Even if the tempo of the existing song varies a bit, these tools can deliver a song BPM range that you can further modify if you wish.
