Tempo Markings

The tempo of a piece will typically be written at the start of a piece of music, and in modern Western music is usually indicated in beats per minute (BPM). This means that a particular note value (for example, a quarter note or crotchet) is specified as the beat, and that the amount of time between successive beats is a specified fraction of a minute. The greater the number of beats per minute, the smaller the amount of time between successive beats, and thus faster a piece must be played. For example, a tempo of 60 beats per minute signifies one beat per second, while a tempo of 120 beats per minute is twice as rapid, signifying one beat every 0.5 seconds. Mathematical tempo markings of this kind became increasingly popular during the first half of the 19th century, after the metronome had been invented by Johann Nepomuk Mälzel, although early metronomes were somewhat inconsistent. Beethoven was one of the first composers to use the metronome; in the eighteen-teens he published metronomic indications for the eight symphonies he had composed up to that time.^[1]

With the advent of modern electronics, BPM became an extremely precise measure. Music sequencers use the BPM system to denote tempo.

Tempo is as crucial in contemporary music as it is in classical. In electronic dance music, accurate knowledge of a tune's BPM is important to DJs for the purposes of beatmatching.