counting bars

[djhipnotikk]

christ!!! do not start with dubstep, its crazy, you think your counting a slow bpm, but its like d'n'b bpm's.

try some armand van helden or any house.

it's still bars... :P you can choose to count it in a halftime feel (70bpm) along with the kick and snare, or double time (140bpm) with the hats/bass. either way, there are still measures/bars/phrases. i don't recommend trying to count out any Burial tunes...just stay faaaar away from that for now :P

[djmoonie]

Whilst drum patterns might change, the vast vast majority of music you'll spin will be in 4/4 time. Thats 4 beats to a measure.

However, whilst you *can* mix by just counting 4 beats, you'll often find that a synth or vocal runs over a much higher number of beats.

But don't worry too much about this. If you can dance to music, you can almost certainly get a mix to the right phrase. You should hear it instinctively.

[cutflow]

yeah i think ill stick to counting house music 4/4 beats lol.

[Anbuzan]

if this big question is confusing then ill rephrase. i have been counting 1,2,3,4...1,2,3,4....4 beats per bar, right. but i want to be tested now like if i do it myself i wud feel like so confidence like "yeah i did it right" lol so i want to put myself on a test drive.

I have come from a background of classical and instrumental music so I know what you mean about counting right. But instead of 1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4, depending on the song or genre, you will usually have 8 or 16-bar phrases.

Sometimes it's easier to think of music in terms of phrases and less on the actual downbeat. When counting bars for phrases, you would probably want to start counting like 1,2,3,4, 2,2,3,4, 3,2,3,4, 4,2,3,4 (that's 4 measures or bars) do this all the way until the end of the phrase (sometimes 8,2,3,4). Then you can cue whatever effect or whatever event you want to happen for the next phrase.

Sometimes there will be a break after 8 bars and have a 1 or 2 measure break like before a key change or something. Mixing songs (although I'm fairly new to it) seems to get much easier the more familiar you are with the song and phrase structure. Just pick out a couple songs you really like and memorize the phrasing structure.

Hope this helps!

[Warwolt]

Usually its just enough to get into the groove, you can in almost all EDM feel when a bar starts so its easier to just count a slow 1-2-3-4 based on the downbeat of each bar rather than the downbeat of each quarter note.

Since you'll probably have a lot more going on in your head than counting the music, it should rather be a thing you feel in your stomach than something you actively do in your head.

[tekkon]

check out Beardyman on youtube, he doesnt count out beats but the way he builds a track "live" emphasizes how different phrase lengths are used together and he's hilarious at the same time.