Pamparo in Toronto

Inspired by a previous post (1/2 Minute Clip), I will be starting a series of posts that will contain music of more-or-less 30 seconds in length. The challenge is to make the music sound like a “full” song and with structure. It may seem limiting but I think the more there is a limit, the more there is a potential for coming up with creative ideas.

Now, how do I make sure that I can fit a piece of music in that time-frame? I kinda used this guideline …

The music in the previous post was actually calculated as:

Time Signature 4/4
Tempo: 120 bpm

To get 30-secs worth of music: 120 bpm / 2 = 60 — now I know I have 60 beats to fill
To find out how many bars: 60 / 4 counts = 15 bars — this is the total number of bars I have

Once I have all these info, all I need to do is find a groove, a key and a motif … that actually sounded like a lot after I wrote that!

Here are some of the songs that I’ll be working on:
3/4, 90bpm = 45/3 = 15 bars
4/4, 96bpm = 48/4 = 12 bars
5/4, 100bpm = 50/5 = 10 bars

Now, who ever said math is over-rated?!

Next part of the series, the music will be in 3/4 @ 90bpm! It’s somewhat of a lullaby