Started out rapping, need some help on bars.

G

G-Prynce

New member
You probably heard this before and stuff, but how do you work out bars? I checked in several places, trying to figure it out on my own from lyrics of actual songs, to some of my own lyrics. Man still hasn't figured it out yet though. If you could check out this piece of lyricism and tell me how many bars it has, and how to work them out from here, I'll be real happy. Also, if you could tell me how these lyrics are, that'll be great too. This is my first post here, and I'm sure I'm gonna love it. I'm a dedicated 13 year old rapper, needing some help. I haven't finished these lyrics, but just as a point to carry on with, I'd like to know. Bless.

My lyrics bring in lyricism, my life brings in virtualism
your crown clearly states imperialism
Over-powering fools saying its materialism
you have the gold and you rap with pure centralism
you say it's all done by like symbolism,
when you rush with bombs it ain't like patriotism
When I say what's up you say emotionalism,
I have the flow of a tiger and you call it immpressionism
then you rap with full emoblism, I say call the cops you say thats federalism
so what can one do to prove his legalism
I can prove that I rhyme by saying journalism
plurism, ventriloquism, liberalism, nationalism, socialism, fatalism, organism, pessimism, electricism, invalidism, activism
Is that enough for you, and fundamentalism
you say I rap with my rhymes and anabolism
If you got the flow to do it, don't end up with exorcism
Cause you know I got rhymes coming from all the sides
you have tons of pride, from all your rides
you say yours glides, but I hardly see it, and you gotta admit
your verses aren't legit, you can come and remit, but always sit and reminisce
Clouds pop up, from under the abyss, swiss hits, you clowns and jokers are a miss fam
You feel the pain when they shot your brain
throwing all gold chains, slash them with the 1st crane
1st class plane, floods and blocked drains
Polish foreign names, click click bang
You go slang with that small gang in the small prang
with the small clang, then you slapped him and sprang,
with the small hand, told him to use the small hang, bang bang
small flight harangue, you small type sang, in that small youth gang
I write lyrics like a lyricist, for poems and raps, you say he's stuck in that trap
he needs to learn to clap, you take him for scrap
go wrap up your presents and give him his hat
this beats so hard it might break his map, he claims he got a strap
but he ain't got anything apart from hate dislike and a shack
My philosophy is heavenly, your comedy it bothers me
the UK uses the german policy
you should come and ask for apology
 
The best thing for you to do is get some basic music theory under your belt but I'll try to explain here anyway. Each syllable typically in rap is either a 32nd, a 16th or a 8th in length depending on your speed. Any slower and it would be singing or the annoying noises Nicki Minaj uses in her raps, any faster it would be a world record and incomprehensible.

Each bar has 16 16ths, 32 32nds or 8 8ths to make a whole in the same way you would imagine cutting up a pie equally. Now if you decide to go the same speed as someone like Eminem you would mainly be using 16ths in your raps which would mean you could use 16 syllables per bar max, you would want to account for things like breaths and where you want your end rhymes to fall.

Usually in rap the snare hits every half bar and that's where most rappers like to land their end rhyme so i'll use that as a basic structure to give you an example. So we're working in half bars and 16ths meaning we have 8 16ths for each line or 8 syllables max.

Lets take these 2 lines as the example:
My lyrics bring in lyricism, my life brings in virtualism

my ly rics bring in ly ri ci sm - this is 9 syllables making it too long meaning you would either have to speed up two of the syllables to 32nds to make it fit or get rid of one.
my life brings in vir tua li sm - this is 8 syllables fitting perfectly for 16ths

No one can tell you how many bars it is, that entirely depends on the speed you're going and how you want to structure it.
 
Olie said:
The best thing for you to do is get some basic music theory under your belt but I'll try to explain here anyway. Each syllable typically in rap is either a 32nd, a 16th or a 8th in length depending on your speed. Any slower and it would be singing or the annoying noises Nicki Minaj uses in her raps, any faster it would be a world record and incomprehensible.

Each bar has 16 16ths, 32 32nds or 8 8ths to make a whole in the same way you would imagine cutting up a pie equally. Now if you decide to go the same speed as someone like Eminem you would mainly be using 16ths in your raps which would mean you could use 16 syllables per bar max, you would want to account for things like breaths and where you want your end rhymes to fall.

Usually in rap the snare hits every half bar and that's where most rappers like to land their end rhyme so i'll use that as a basic structure to give you an example. So we're working in half bars and 16ths meaning we have 8 16ths for each line or 8 syllables max.

Lets take these 2 lines as the example:
My lyrics bring in lyricism, my life brings in virtualism

my ly rics bring in ly ri ci sm - this is 9 syllables making it too long meaning you would either have to speed up two of the syllables to 32nds to make it fit or get rid of one.
my life brings in vir tua li sm - this is 8 syllables fitting perfectly for 16ths

No one can tell you how many bars it is, that entirely depends on the speed you're going and how you want to structure it.
Click to expand...

Well, I sort of understand, however I read on an old post here that; 1 2 3 4 would equal 4 bars. Is that true? And my rapping style is similar to a rapper named Lowkey. But still, how would I measure them? By saying 1 2 3 4whilst I'm rapping, or tapping on the table? I'm quite confused, but thanks again.
 
G-Prynce said:
Well, I sort of understand, however I read on an old post here that; 1 2 3 4 would equal 4 bars. Is that true? And my rapping style is similar to a rapper named Lowkey. But still, how would I measure them? By saying 1 2 3 4whilst I'm rapping, or tapping on the table? I'm quite confused, but thanks again.
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How to count them in your rap or how to count them on a beat? Most beats have a snare every half bar so when you hear 2 snares that is *usualy* a bar. To make your raps fit to the beat you should learn to intuitivly make it fit by taking out/changing small parts that sound "wrong" or mess up the flow. If you want to go the more logical method you can count syllables in each bar and decide how fast you want your rap and where you will have breaths then edit it accordingly.

If you're counting to 4 it's to count the time signature (each number in this case would hit on each 4th in the bar) so it would be one bar assuming your counting on beat and the time signature is 4/4.

Here's the first two pages i could find that should help you:

Time signature - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A.P. Music Theory Lessons
 
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Olie said:
How to count them in your rap or how to count them on a beat? Most beats have a snare every half bar so when you hear 2 snares that is *usualy* a bar. To make your raps fit to the beat you should learn to intuitivly make it fit by taking out/changing small parts that sound "wrong" or mess up the flow. If you want to go the more logical method you can count syllables in each bar and decide how fast you want your rap and where you will have breaths then edit it accordingly.

If you're counting to 4 it's to count the time signature (each number in this case would hit on each 4th in the bar) so it would be one bar assuming your counting on beat and the time signature is 4/4.
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Yeah, cool. I need to count bars in my rap, so if I hit a verse on the exact 4th beat, where the track would have its little beat and I would move onto the next verse, would that be a bar in the rap?
 
Get the basic theory under yr belt, but also listen to a lot of blues, especially ZZ Top. Listen to the solo on "Gimme All Yr Lovin": Billy plays with the time, starting his "phrases" before the first beat of the bar, so it carries in from the previous bar. Little tricks like this will make you stand out; all the best rappers are students of music other than rap. It goes both ways too; I get guitar solo ideas from listening to the way rappers carry the beat.
 
G-Prynce said:
Yeah, cool. I need to count bars in my rap, so if I hit a verse on the exact 4th beat, where the track would have its little beat and I would move onto the next verse, would that be a bar in the rap?
Click to expand...

You need to do some research in music theory. I can't explain it well enough in a short space. Perhaps someone else will have a better way to explain it to you.

Go through the whole of this series of videos and you will understand what you need to: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6gHEIF0rT2w&list=PLB585CE43B02669C3
 
bars are a collection of beats.

they can have any number of beats and any type of note value can be the beat

however in pop music we tend to use either 2/4 or 4/4 or 2/2, sometimes 3/4

the number on top tells you how many beats: in the above examples that would be 2, 4, 2, 3

the number made by the fraction tells you the type of the beat: in the examples above that would be 1/4, 1/4, 1/2, 1/4, read as quarter-note, quarter-note, half-note, quarter-note

the above time signatures are called simple time signatures because the beat is divided into 2 even parts and each lower level has the same idea applied to it (quarter notes divide into 8th notes which divide into 16th notes which divide into 32nds which divide into 64ths and so on (inch worm in reverse))

we can also have compound time signatures which divide the main beat into 3 equal parts and then divide each of those parts into 2 equal parts. examples of these are

6/8, 9/8, 12/8

number of beats for each 2, 3 and 4 (6/3 = 2, 9/3=3, 12/3=4)

the beat is actually 1/4. in each case: a dotted-quarter-note (yes the dot is important as it tells us that the beat is half as long again, or more correctly in this case can be divided by 3 - 3 x 1/8 = 3/8 = 1/4+(1/8) = 1/4+(1/2x1/4)

everything else is simply counting

I have some material on generating rhythms by syllable breakdown and metrical accenting if anyone is interested - it is original research so can only be shared off-line at this time
 
bandcoach said:
I have some material on generating rhythms by syllable breakdown and metrical accenting if anyone is interested - it is original research so can only be shared off-line at this time
Click to expand...

Colour me curious, send me it if you can.
 
Basically you count bars on the beat, not from the text or sometimes each line could be a bar. Count like each snare 2 times going up till the verse ends, like: snare 1(bar 1) snare 2(bar1) snare 3(bar2) snare 4(bar2) etc etc. Im not a 100% about this but im pretty sure. this for example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxU7hEviQ3s
 
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