EVERYTHING ON BPM THE IMPACT OF SONG SPEED The tempo you play your tracks at can make or break the impact on your audience. Often, tempo (speed, beats per minute -BPM-) is confused with energy. In some cases those are directly connected, but it is important to know when Tempo is much more important than Energy, or the other way round. Important to take notice of, is that everyone experiences tempo differently. For one person Hardstyle is ultra fast (the average Hardstyle record is 150 beats per minute) but for another it is slow. Which it is, for lovers of Hardcore, which is even faster. Drum and Bass plays around 170 BPM and is considered fast music by some. For people who listen differently, and feel the slow vibe of the DnB - groove, this is not considered fast music. Watch people dance to this genre and see for yourself how big these differences are! Contine on next page
Tempo and genre This picture shows the main classic dance-genres and the tempo those tracks are usually in. It is important to know these by heart. Every genre has it s own distinct tempo range. But it does not mean a Hip-Hop track can not create just as much energy as a hardstyle record, for those who love it.
A high energy Hip-Hop track (average 95-110 BPM) can have more energy than a house track (average 122-128 BPM), even though a house track is much faster. Energy is not depending on speed, it depends on the context of a track, and on how enthousiastic your crowd responds to it. To make it even more complex, even tracks with a very laid back sound can generate great respons on a dancefloor if that track is exacly what the people want to hear. EXAMPLE 1 (SWITCHING FROM QUICK TO SLOW) On a club night where you can play a multiple of genres, so, Top-40, House and R&B, it can be a huge energy boost when you drop the BPM from 125 to 110, after having played some high energy house tracks. So, If you played some classic house tracks like The Weekend by Michael Gray, and Shined On Me by Praise Cats, and you make a Drop Mix to Single Ladies by Beyoncé, this will usually be a big success on the floor. Important is to know your crowd, and to feel what they feel. If they have just gotten to like your uptempo tracks, and they are clearly in a House-mood (122-128 BPM), dropping the BPM is NOT a good idea. If you consider a BPM-drop, wait untill you think the House-mood of your audience is over, and then drop a slower track. EXAMPLE 2 (PITCHING UP TO KEEP THE ENERGY) When you play a house set of around 126-128 BPM, and you and your crowd are ready for a house classic like Show Me Love by Robin S, which is orginally 121 BPM, DO NOT drop the tempo to the original speed of Robin S. This would be a huge bummer, while you expected an energy explosion. To fix that, play Show Me Love on the same BPM as your previous tracks. This means you will have to push the track up at least 5%, but that is to avoid an energy drop. Tempo and context As you read above, the tempo of the tracks previously played decide how people experience a track. If you have played R&B/Disco/HipHop of around 95-115 BPM for hours, people will feel that a track of 123 BPM is very quick or even much too hasty for the night and for their bodies. Or, when you have played around 135 as a Trance-DJ for an hour, a House-DJ who will take over, will decrease the energy by playing tracks of 127 BPM. Tempo and Heartbeat Also, our heartbeat is a factor in how we experience the speed of music. If our hartbeat is low, we will experience music faster then when our hartbeat is high. You can test this by listening to a track when you are relaxed, and then playing it again after you do a couple sprints. You will feel like the speed of the track has been lowered. Anticipating this fact, DJ s have always been playing tracks up to 5% quicker than it s original speed, when people are dancing (thus having a higher heartbeat). When people
are lounging, or just having a drink on the dancefloor, there is no need to play a track quicker (or slower) than it is. Slowing Down There is usually no need to play a track slower than it originally is. It DOES give a song extra groove if you slow it down, so some house tracks from around 125-130 sound better when slowed down. But in most cases slowing down a track reduces it s impact on the dancefloor or simply sounds strange. Tempo range When people are going crazy on your dancefloor, it is common to raise the tempo of your tracks ( pitching up ). Although, quick songs (128 BPM and higher) need less boost than slow songs (128 and lower). In this list, we show you how much you can pitch a song up, before it starts losing it s original feel. original tempo maximum tempo boost R&B/Hip-Hop, Trap, Disco 90-100 6% / 6-8 BPM extra Various mid-tempo music 100-122 4% / 3-4 BPM extra House/Tech/Techno, etc 122-128 3% / 2-3 BPM extra Trance/Hardcore/DnB, etc 130-higher no boost nessesary Song energy and groove Every track you play has a different optimal tempo to play at. If you slow down a track by more than 1%, or speed it up more than 3%, it will loose it s original sound and feel. So we highly recommend to stay within that range when playing a song. Preparing your next mix It is very normal to adjust the tempo of the track that is currently running on the dancefloor. If you do this as subtle as you can, no one will hear it. This can be very useful or even nessesary sometimes, if your next track is much slower or quicker than the one you are playing. Keeping the margins in mind from the list above, you will see that you can search your next song in a tempo-range of 12 BPM s. - For example: If your current track is originally 120 BPM, and playing at 123, you can search your new one between 117 and 124 BPM. - Or, if a your current track is originally 100 BPM and running at 104, you can search a new track between 94 and 106 BPM.
Closing big tempo gaps To bridge a gap between your current track and the new one you selected, you adjust the tempo of both tracks. Although, the track that people are dancing to, can only be adjusted 2% up or down from the tempo it is running at. The track that you have selected to follow, can be adjusted within the margins as indicated. Example: CURRENT TRACK: Originally 120 BMP, running at 123 BPM. NEW TRACK: 118 BPM. Lower the running track to 121 while running, Speed the new track up to 121 before starting. And make a smooth mix! Breaking the rules There are exceptions to the rules. Being creative with music means you should know the rules, and than break them in a way it sounds great for your audience. Try to experiment and see how much fun being creative can be. It is possible for instance, to beatmix a track of 125 BPM with a track of 105 BPM. To do so: take one block of 32 beats in the running track of 125 BPM, to push the tempo to 110 BPM. On the one, start mixing the track of 105, speed up to 110, just like you would do in a regular beatmix. As long as you do these things smoothly, which requires a lot of practice, it s all possible. 2017 DJ School Amsterdam - All rights reserved