Home / Guides / What a bar of electronic music looks like on a score
Guide
What a bar of electronic music looks like on a score
A bar is a box of time. At the tempo of CONTROL YOUR BODY the box lasts a little under two seconds. Here is what goes in it.
The bar and the beat
Music on a score is cut into bars. A bar holds a fixed number of beats. The two numbers at the start, one above the other, give the count: the top number is how many beats are in a bar, and the bottom number says which note value counts as one beat. Four over four means four beats in a bar, each worth a quarter note. It is the usual count in dance music.
The tempo says how fast the beats go, in beats per minute. In his YouTube description, CONTROL YOUR BODY is at 129.2 beats per minute.
The arithmetic
One minute is 60 seconds. One beat at 129.2 beats per minute lasts 60 divided by 129.2, about 0.464 seconds. A bar of four beats lasts about 1.86 seconds.
A bar drawn out
The picture is an example of one bar of dance music in four over four. It is not a transcription of the track, which has more parts than this.
On a drum staff each line or space stands for a different drum, not a pitch. The kick is usually written in the bottom space. A pattern with a kick on every beat is called four on the floor. A hat on the off beat sits in the gap between two kicks. Together they make the pulse and the lift that much dance music rests on.
A bar of bass, piano or saw is written differently. Those parts use pitches, so the notes go up and down the staff and the note shapes show how long each one lasts.
The key: E Phrygian
The released material gives the key of CONTROL YOUR BODY as E Phrygian. Phrygian is a mode, a scale with a particular order of steps. E Phrygian uses the notes E, F, G, A, B, C and D, the white keys of a piano from one E to the next. The first step, from E to F, is a half step. That small step right above the home note gives the mode its dark, tense sound.
Written this way the key needs no sharps or flats. A piece can still use notes outside the scale. The key name alone does not say which ones.
What to try
- Set a metronome to 129.2 and count one, two, three, four, over and over. That is the bar.
- Count the off beats aloud: one and two and three and four and. Listen for sounds that land on the "and".
- Play the white keys from E up to the next E on a piano. Then play E and F alone, and hear the half step.
- Write one bar of your own with a pencil. Draw a staff, put a kick on each beat, and add one other sound.
Limits
This guide uses only the tempo, the key and the part names given in released material, plus general music theory. It does not show what the track plays bar by bar, because that has not been published.
Keep going
Stuck on something this guide did not cover? Ask in the Discord.