What is BPM in music?

BPM means beats per minute. It's the number of beats you'd count in one minute of a song, so it tells you how fast the music goes. At 60 BPM there's one beat every second, about as fast as a clock ticks. At 120 BPM there are two every second, which is roughly the pace of a brisk walk and the tempo of a huge amount of pop and dance music.

The beat is the pulse you'd tap your foot to. In most songs it's marked by the kick drum and the snare. When people argue about a song's BPM, they're usually disagreeing about which pulse is "the" beat, not about the speed.

How to find a song's BPM

• Tap along. Open tap tempo, play the song and tap each beat. Sixteen taps get you within about half a BPM.
• Analyse the file. If you have the MP3 or WAV, the BPM detector reads the tempo and key from the audio.
• Count it. Count beats for 15 seconds and multiply by 4. It's quick but less precise: one miscount moves the result by 4.

BPM and time signature

BPM counts beats, not bars. In 4/4 there are four beats per bar, so at 120 BPM a bar lasts two seconds. In 3/4 the same 120 BPM gives bars of 1.5 seconds. In 6/8 musicians usually count two big beats per bar, which is why a 6/8 song might be listed at 60 BPM by one person and 180 by another.

BPM and Italian tempo markings

Before metronomes, composers described speed with words like adagio (slow), andante (walking pace) and allegro (fast). They're still printed on sheet music. The tempo markings chart translates each one into a BPM range.

Why DJs care about BPM

To mix two songs smoothly, a DJ matches their tempos so the beats line up. Moving a 126 BPM track to 128 means speeding it up by about 1.6%, a change most listeners won't notice. Bigger jumps make vocals sound chipmunk-like, which is why DJ sets tend to stay in one tempo zone and drift slowly.

BPM outside music

Doctors use the same unit for your heart rate. A resting adult heart usually beats 60 to 100 times a minute; you can measure yours with the heart rate counter. CPR compressions are given at 100 to 120 per minute, and the CPR metronome keeps that pace.

Quick reference

For any other tempo, the BPM to ms calculator gives the exact length of every note value.