bpmtap #
I’m having fun with Strudel at the moment. Whether for composing or doing covers, the first thing I need is the BPM.
Since I’m lazy, I need a tool to give me the BPM and the time signature of what I want to write.
Since I hate ad-ridden websites, I wrote a CLI for that.
Since I’m super lazy, you can mark kick, hi-hat, and floor with the left hand, and the tool spits out Strudel code ready to copy.
BPM: 126.0
Beats: 154
Bars: 36
Strudel:
--------------------------------
setcpm(126)
stack(
s("bd ~ ~ bd"),
s("~ hh hh ~"),
s("~ ~ ~ bass")
)
--------------------------------
How does it work? #
Very simple: press space to mark a beat and enter to mark a bar.
q, w, t for kick, high-hat, and floor.
Besides being useful, it’s honestly fun.
Some examples:
Cold and Blue - Luno #
Tap SPACE to the beat
Press ENTER at the start of each bar
Ctrl+C to quit
BPM: 126.0
Beats: 154
Bars: 36
The (ad-heavy) site tunebat says 126 bpm. Hehe.
Diamond veins - French 79 #
Tap SPACE to the beat
Press ENTER at the start of each bar
Ctrl+C to quit
BPM: 100.4
Beats: 60
Bars: 15
Signature: 4/4
Weird uh
Waltz in C Sharp Minor (Op. 64 No. 2) - Chopin #
Performance by Rousseau
Tap SPACE to the beat
Press ENTER at the start of each bar
Ctrl+C to quit
BPM: 121.1
Beats: 24
Bars: 8
Signature: 3/4
Ok fun !
Nocturne Op. 9 No. 1 - Chopin #
Performance by Kassia
Source: https://musescore.com/user/122383/scores/169484
Tap SPACE to the beat
Press ENTER at the start of each bar
Ctrl+C to quit
BPM: 81.1
Beats: 31
Bars: 5
Signature: 6/4
Harder!
Apparently, the definition of larghetto is 60 to 66 bpm. I don’t know if I’m just bad at it or if this version is slightly faster.
Richard Wagner - Ride of The Valkyries #
Tap SPACE to the beat
Press ENTER at the start of each bar
Ctrl+C to quit
BPM: 108.1
Beats: 36
Bars: 4
Signature: 9/8
Houdini - Dua Lipa #
Tap SPACE to the beat
Press ENTER at the start of each bar
Ctrl+C to quit
BPM: 117.5
Beats: 44
Bars: 11
Signature: 4/4
Looks like the BPM really is 117. Surprising.
Uptempo #
Let’s wrap up with a nod to the big weirdos of uptempo
Tap SPACE to the beat
Press ENTER at the start of each bar
Ctrl+C to quit
BPM: 196.7
Beats: 112
Bars: 28
Signature: 4/4
Anyway.
Sources #
- Link to the bpmtap repo on GitHub
- Wikipedia article on Time signature
