Beats Per Minute

To help you understand this with your mathematical hats on, let's break it down: 

How do you determine the number of beats in music given n BPM? 

If a song has a tempo of 120 BPM, which means 120 beats per minute (so fast, right?), how many beats occur per second?

Simply divide the n BPM to 60 (since one minute has 60 seconds): 

Example: 120 BPM/60 seconds = 2 beats 

So, that's 2 beats per second! (Imagine how fast the beats increase as the BPM rises!) 

This helps dancers and musicians maintain synchronization, ensuring their movements or melodies align into perfect timing! 

To maintain a steady tempo, musicians use a metronome, which produces a steady click, pulse, or beat to help them play accurately. 

Now that you understand its importance in music, how about its role in dance?

Again, BPM stands for beats per minute, and it tells us how fast or slow a song is. Basically, it counts how many beats happen in one minute of music. A song with 103 BPM has 103 beats per minute. The higher the BPM, the faster the music. The lower the BPM, the slower it feels.

Here’s a quick reference:

• 60 BPM = slow (think ballads or chill R&B)

• 100–120 BPM = moderate (most pop and dance songs)

• 140+ BPM = fast (EDM, drum and bass, or intense choreo)

So when two songs share a similar BPM—even if they sound nothing alike—the timing of the beats still lines up. That’s why your dance moves can match the rhythm of both songs without needing to change anything!

BPM is a big deal in dance because it sets the pace for your movements. If a choreographer creates a routine to a 103 BPM song, the steps are timed to match those beats. That means you can swap in another song with 103 BPM, and the choreography still feels in sync.

DJs do this all the time when they mix tracks for performances or dance covers. And K-pop fans? They've mastered this. This trend was started by K-pop fans that liked two K-pop groups and wanted to see whether one group’s dance fit another group’s song. Many of them started experimenting by taking dance practices from, let’s say BTS and overlapping it with a song from perhaps, Blackpink. They quickly realized that if the BPM matched, the dance would fit fairly well.