Beginner DJ Lesson What Is a Beat Bar and Phrase?

0:00 On the other hand, if you are a new DJ then pay attention

Alright, first of all, this video is for the new DJ. This is a beginner demonstration so if you are an educated DJ and you know what you're on about then please stop watching because I don't want to A bore you or B waste your time. On the other hand, if you are a new DJ then pay attention. This video is all about finding out what a beat is, what a bar is and also what a phrase is. Integral parts of DJing. If you do not understand what a beat is, a bar is and a phrase, then it's going to be very difficult for you to understand how to mix in time and of course in phrase. Track I'm using is KPR-227. It's from Karmic Power Records. There will be information in the description. I'm using the Radio Mix by the way. Okay, so let's listen to the beginning of the track.

2:17 Let's find a good point

Now, what's happening here first of all is the track is not starting on the one. You've got like kind of a little bit of an introduction here. But first of all, what is a beat? That's a beat. That's a beat. It's the kick in a track. It's the drumming part of the track. The beat could be here. It could be there. It could be that bit. It could be that bit. It could be that bit. It could be that bit. In other words, the beat is that kick sound that is at a constant all the way through the track. That is the beat. Secondly, what's a bar? Well first of all, the bar is a count of four. One, two, three, four. Now what you do not do... is play the track and then randomly start counting one two three four anywhere in the track because you could actually start counting one two three four at the wrong place and if you do that your counting of a bar will always be wrong all the way through the track so it is very important to make sure you start counting

On what we class in the DJ world as the one at the right place. So, with the volume down, I'm going to press play, I'm going to press search and skip through the track randomly, stop it about there and put the volume up. Let's find the one. Let's find a good point. Okay, I'm going to get rid of my hot cues that I made earlier and I'm going to set a hot cue. There. Why? Now let's have a listen to the few sounds we had before we had that noise there, that sort of kick, that sound, alright? That first beat. Let's go back a little bit. Let's listen to this bit here before I set the hot cue. It's almost like a... Alright. Let's have a listen to the beginning of the track again. We've got a similar sound here, haven't we? Okay, so what that's telling me is that that similar sound at the beginning is matching the similar sound in the middle of the track and we had a beat there. Now that to me is telling me that's the one...

5:41 Hopefully that will help you to understand what a bar is

In this track, that's, oh sorry, not in the track, I beg your pardon, in the bar. So, I'm going to start counting one from that point. Let's have a listen. There. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. One, two, three, four. Ah, right! And we have that sound again. That's just clarifying the fact that I was correct in saying that earlier on when I started counting one, that was the correct point because now we seem to have what's known as structure in this track because we had that one again at the exact point where I started to count one again. Let's have a listen from there. There we go. One. Alright, so hopefully that will help you to understand what a bar is. Again, a bar is the count of four. One, two, three, four. And as soon as you get to number four, you start again at one. One, two, three, four. Alright, what's a phrase? Well, firstly, a phrase in this track could be completely different to a phrase in another track.

8:03 Let's start from the beginning of this track here

And the third track could be completely different to the second and to the one we're playing now. A phrase is always dependent on the track you're using. Now, very important, first before I start to show you the phrasing of this track. Phrasing will practically never, and when I say practically never, you could listen to...

10,000 tracks and one track out of that 10,000 may have ridiculously kind of phrase it could be the phrasing could be completely off two reasons one is the producer eight knew exactly what they were doing and wanted to be just go in a new direction the other one is they could have had a very bad day had too much green and just lost their mind so phrasing Is about counting, of course, your bars, but phrasing will always be, most of the time, like I said earlier, 4 bars, 8 bars, 16, 24 sometimes and sometimes 32. You should never in your entire life hear phrasing of 3, 5 bars, 7, 9, 11, 15, 17, 19.

And of course, those numbers relate to what I talked about earlier on, which are bars, the count of 1, 2, 3, 4. So let's start from the beginning of this track here. OK. I'm going to go from the first beat and I'm going to start to count bars as follows. 1, 1, 2, 3, 2, 1, 2, 3, 3, 1, 2, 3. 4, 1, 2, 3. OK, let's see how many times I can count before we get a change in the track. Now as soon as we hear a change in the track, I will know and I would like you to start to understand that that is about our phrasing. OK, let's have a listen. 1, 1, 2, 3, 2. 1, 2, 3, 3. 1, 2, 3, 4. 1, 2, 3, 5.

Six, one, two, three, seven, one, two, three, eight, one, two, three, nine, one, two, ah, hold on. Did you notice there that we had a new element starting the track, the bass line? But prior to that, we counted eight. So with this track, we can safely say that the first phrase is eight bars because we had eight bars of the beat and then we had a new element arrive. On the track, the bassline. So what I'm going to do, I'm going to start counting from that bassline and let's see how many bars we have before the next change in the track because I've now found out that the first phrase of this track is eight bars. Let's go back a little bit so we get on the one. We start on the one from the beginning of that bassline. Okay, let's start doing exactly the same thing as we did earlier. Start counting our bars from that point.

1-1-2-3 2-1-2-3 3-1-2-3 4-1-2-3 5-1-2-3 6-1-2-3 7-1-2-3 8-1-2-3 9-1-2-3 10-1-2-3 11-12-1-2-3 13-1-2-3 14, 1, 2, 3, 15, 1, 2, 3, 16, 1, 2, 3, 17. We didn't get 17 did we? Because we had vocals start after 16. So these are our magical numbers as proven with this track. 8, 16, as I said it depends on the track but this is how we find out about our phrasing. I'm not going to go any further because this is all that this video is about. The beat, the bar and the phrase. Practice and enjoy. Thank you very much.

This transcript was produced automatically from the audio of the video and may contain mistakes.