Overview
Now you are ready to learn the skill of counting BPM’s (Beats Per Minute). The BPM’s can help you figure out what songs you might want to mix together or what songs are suitable for something specific such as a mixtape or a line-up.
Instructions
The best way to quickly count BPM’s is to play a song and count the beats for 30 seconds and then multiply by 2. Sounds easy but you need to know what to count. Below is a diagram of a 1 bar beat, it shows the kick, snare, kick, snare, pattern. This is a simple diagram of the parts of a beat. Your job is to count each part for 30 seconds. You may want to use a stopwatch or a clock with a seconds hand.
Usually you are counting:
1, 2, 3, 4 (that’s bar #1)
5, 6, 7, 8 (the bar #2)
9, 10, 11, 12 (bar #3) and so on.
If you counted up to 62 beats in a 30 second period, your BPM’s would be 124 BPM’s for that song.
You will be able to practice this by counting the BPM’s for the tracks on the CD’s for this program or by listening to your favorite songs to see what BPM they might be. Remember that as long as you are in the right ballpark of counting the BPM's, you should be ok. Even if you use a store bought BPM counter, sometimes it can be different from what you might count on your own.
