Beats per minute
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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Beats per minute (BPM) is a unit typically used as either a measure of tempo in music, or a measure of one's heart rate. A rate of 60 bpm means that one beat will occur every second.
The BPM tempo of a piece of music is conventionally shown in its score as a metronome mark, as illustrated to the right. This indicates that there should be 120 crotchet beats (quarter notes) per minute. In simple time signatures it is conventional to show the tempo in terms of the note duration on the bottom. So a 4/4 would show a crotchet (or quarter note), as above, while a 2/2 would show a minim (or half note).
In compound time signatures the beat consists of three note durations (so there are 3 quavers (eighth notes) per beat in a 6/8 time signature), so a dotted form of the next note duration up is used. The most common compound signatures: 6/8, 9/8, and 12/8, therefore use a dotted crotchet (dotted quarter note) to indicate their BPM.
Exotic time and particularly slow time signatures may indicate their BPM tempo using other note durations.
Dance music
Beats per minute became common terminology in popular music during the disco era because of its usefulness to DJs, and remain important in dance music.
In this context the beats measured are either crotchets (quarter notes) in the time signature (sometimes called down-beats, although the term is ambiguous), or drum beats (typically bass-drum or another functionally similar synthesized sound), whichever is more frequent. Higher BPM values are therefore achievable by increasing the number of drum beats, without increasing the tempo of the music.
Hip hop typically uses a BPM tempo of 80-100, while house music is faster around 120-128 bpm (from regular house music to UK Garage), and Jungle music generally ranges between 140-150 bpm (with some differences in older compositions). Psytrance is almost exclusively produced at 145 BPM, whereas Speedcore and Gabber music both frequently exceed 160 BPM, with an underlying crotchet tempo of around 4000-5288 Template:Fact.
