A piece I'm reading in 3/4 has a BPM of 130 dotted quarters per minute. How would i do a conversion of dotted quarter BPM to quarter? I have no clue on how to convert different note length tempos to the tempo of the beat of a different length note.
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2The bpm of 3/4 time doesn't require a dotted anything to designate bpm. It sounds like possibly you're not in 3/4 but a compound time instead. There is no point at all in using 'dotted crotchet as the 'beat' in 3/4 time. making this questin based on false premises. A screenshot of the piece may shed light on the problem - it may be written wrongly.– TimCommented Jun 20, 2021 at 17:03
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2 Answers
A dotted quarter note is equivalent to three eighth notes. Since there are 130 dotted quarter notes per minute, that means there are 390 eighth notes per minute. A quarter note is equivalent to two eighth notes. So 390 eighth notes per minute is equivalent to 195 quarter notes per minute.
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1Have you come up with a good reason why the piece should use a dotted ctotchet as the 'beat'?– TimCommented Jun 20, 2021 at 17:04
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@Tim - Considering that I've seen Musescore sheet music in 3/4 time with the half note as the "beat", I don't think a good reason is required. Commented Jun 20, 2021 at 19:35
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@Dekkadeci - would that make it 3/8 or 6/8? Neither the same as 3/4.– TimCommented Jun 20, 2021 at 19:38
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@Dekkadeci sorry but I don't think that's a "good reason". And, be aware, this is not something related to things like "evolution of language". The very concept of fractions in music is the relation between beats and subdivisions. If you got a beat per minute, it means that there's a reference beat, which also becomes the notation reference. There are "fringe" situations, obviously, (for instance, if you're coming from a compound rhythm and you want a straight reference to it) but that's not the point: if the piece is in 3/4, giving a dotted quarter reference for timing is just wrong. Commented Jun 21, 2021 at 2:51
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Besides that: published musescore sheet music is hardly a reference for standard notation, as we all have seen terrible notation examples not only on the musescore library, but even in "published" sheet music. There's plenty of terribly written sheet music, the fact that it's published somewhere doesn't make it "right". Commented Jun 21, 2021 at 2:58
To convert dotted quarter to quarter you only need to multiply by 1.5x, as a quarter is 1.5 times faster than a dotted quarter. so 130 BPM in dotted quarters in normal quarter notes would be 130 * 1.5, which is equal to 195 BPM, for doing it viceversa you only need to divide by 1.5.