Special meaning for "beats" in BPM?
celionati
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Sun, Feb 3, 2008 @ 3:08 PM
I have a feeling that there may be a technical meaning for “beat” in the remixing community. I uploaded 15 seconds of a cappella music from an old catch. The music comprised 8 bars of 6/4 time, which makes 48 beats in 15 seconds, or 192 beats per minute. But other examples in ccMixter appear to have a composite notion of beat. It would make sense to count the 6/4 as 2 beats per measure, divided into triplets, so perhaps I should call it 64 BPM, instead of 192? Or, maybe it’s 32 bars per minute? I will greatly appreciate a definition, or a pointer to one (I did search, but couldn’t find one).
Cheers, Mike O’Donnell http://people.cs.uchicago.e... |
fourstones
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Mon, Feb 4, 2008 @ 12:24 AM
hey mike, the percentage of source material in a modern remix that is in 6/4 is approximately 0% with the remaining 100% being 4/4 - again these are approximate.
Even when the source material is in an odd meter, ‘odd’ as in doesn’t map to a human heartbeat, it is more often than not ‘straightened’ out 4/4 in the remix (see ‘Mission Impossible’) The closest thing to what your describing is a 6/8 blues ballad source that is, as you suggest, treated as 2 beats per bar in a ‘swung’ feel. |
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Thanks for the tip. I’ll mark the 6/4 according to the dotted half, instead of the quarter.
I have a strong impression that you have some 4/4s which are marked at the half note. But I don’t have enough confidence in my ear to be sure of standard time vs. cut time with plenty of half beats. Anyway, the goal is to mark the most useful tempo for the mixers. I get the impression that this is the beat that one would naturally clap or dance to, rather than the denominator in a musical time signature. |
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Quote: celionatiThanks for the tip. I’ll mark the 6/4 according to the dotted half, instead of the quarter.
I have a strong impression that you have some 4/4s which are marked at the half note. But I don’t have enough confidence in my ear to be sure of standard time vs. cut time with plenty of half beats. Anyway, the goal is to mark the most useful tempo for the mixers. I get the impression that this is the beat that one would naturally clap or dance to, rather than the denominator in a musical time signature. Actually…beats per minute means just that. Regardless of the time signature, the BEAT will still go by just as fast. The measures on the other hand will go by faster. I would say just mark your work according to the metronome. Smart people will figure out the correct way to meter it, although I find that the ambiguity often sparks more creativity. |
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