From the course: Music Theory for Songwriters: The Fundamentals

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Beats, bars, and phrases

Beats, bars, and phrases

From the course: Music Theory for Songwriters: The Fundamentals

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Beats, bars, and phrases

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- Song form is the way musical ideas are laid out in time. Just as I needed to show you notes, intervals, scales, and triads before I could talk about chords, I need to take you through the way time is measured in music in order to explain song form. There are three basic units of time in music, beats, bars, and phrases. I'm going to explain each unit to you now and then tie them all together with a musical example at the end of the video. A beat is the basic unit of time in music. It's the pulse in comparison to which we measure all other divisions of time. Rhythm is often defined as a repeating sequence of stressed and unstressed beats. Tempo, which is the speed or pace of a piece is commonly notated in beats per minute. If the tempo of a given piece is 60 beats per minute or BPM, that means a beat will occur every second. If the tempo is 120 BPM, then a beat will occur every half a second. There are units of time and…

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