DJ lesson 10: What are bars and phrases (how to understand your tunes)?

Listen to a lot of dance music? Then you probably understand bars and phrases better than you think.

If you’re able to predict that something’s about to happen in a particular tune at a particular time, then you already have a strong instinct for them.

What are bars and phrases?

Music is divided into beats (which we dealt with in our beat-matching lesson), bars, and phrases.

In most music, each collection of four beats makes up a bar.

And four bars make a phrase.

Creating smooth, tight, emotion-busting mixes becomes much easier when you count these properly.

The easiest way to learn about bars and phrases is to put one of your favourite tunes on and listen.

If you’re lucky, the first beat will be on the one. If you’re unlucky, there might be something twiddly before the first beat of the first bar comes in. Either way, find the ‘1’ that’s the first true beat of the song.

Now just count: 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4… and so on. Obviously count at the same tempo as the music.

Every 1 that you count is the start of a new bar. When you’ve counted four of them – ie, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4, 1, 2, 3, 4 – you’ve counted four bars. And that’s a phrase.

What you’ll notice (hopefully) as you count is that sounds and instrument come and go at regular points in the song. Small changes typically happen after four bars, and something bigger after eight. Go on, start counting, and you’ll hear what I mean.

Why are bars and phrases important?

Phrases are arranged to give a song its structure. The intro might be 8 or 16 bars, a chorus might be 32, a breakdown 32 (or 128 if you’re listening to late 90s trance!).

So bars and phrases act as signposts.

Helpfully, at the end of one phrase, you’ll often hear an obvious marker like a vocal finishing, a cymbal crash, or something similar. Then, on the next beat – and the start of the next phrase, something obviously will change. Sounds will come in – or they’ll drop out depending on where you are in the song.  

To mix properly, you need to match your tunes’ phrases, not just their beats.

If you’re thinking: ‘I don’t need to understand, because my DJ software shows me where breakdowns and drops begin and I set hot cues,’ I disagree.

DJing should be about using your ears, not relying solely on what you can see on a screen.

I’m not being a purist here. Like most DJs, I use loops and tricks and filters to mix in and out of songs. But I also like to let the songs do all the work sometimes. Because nothing beats the atmosphere you create when two songs are perfectly lined up - and elements of the outgoing tune drop out naturally as the new tune builds to some amazing crescendo. Natural ecstasy, I promise.

You don’t need to be playing a sunrise set in a forest in Mexico for this to be important. If you know your tunes, and you know what’s happening in them and when, you can experiment with different mixing points and really listen to what works best.

Every song is different. But they’re also pretty similar.

Whatever you do, don’t start your new tune during the middle of a phrase on the tune that’s playing. It sounds horrible and wrong – and the people on the dancefloor will notice.

Always cue your new tune on the first beat of a new phrase.

REMEMBER: a lot of this will become instinct after a while. Music producers usually give you a sign that a phrase is ending, and you can be pretty sure that if you start your mix on the next beat, there won’t be a car crash.