Note Length Calculator

Name: Note Length
Author: Jürgen Kummer

Calculates the length of whole, half, quarter, etc. notes from the specified tempo or BPM. BPM stands for beats per minute. Tempo is more commonly used in classical music, BPM in modern music. The tempo is always related to a specific note value, often a quarter note or a eighth note. It specifies how many of these notes are played in a minute. The higher the tempo and the larger the note value it refers to, the faster the music. The tempo is usually between 40 (very slow) and 200 (very fast), based on quarter notes. Enter the tempo or BPM and the reference note. The duration in seconds is calculated for each note value. With a high tempo and a high note value, the music is fast and the duration of a note is short. With correspondingly low values, the music is slow and the note length is long.

Tempo, BPM:

referring to notes

note, value	symbol	length in seconds
one and a half 1½ 1.5
whole 1
three quarters 3/4 0.75
half 1/2 0.5
three eighth 3/8 0.375
quarter 1/4 0.25
three sixteenth 3/16 0.1875
eighth 1/8 0.125
three thirty-second 3/32 0.09375
sixteenth 1/16 0.0625
three sixty-fourth 3/64 0.046875
thirty-second 1/32 0.03125

The formula for calculating the length of a note with value x is: x = 60 seconds / BPM / y, where the tempo in BPM refers to a note with value y.

Example: at a tempo of 60 and a note value of 1/4, i.e. a piece played rather slowly, the duration of the half note is two seconds. If the tempo increases to 100, the duration of the half note decreases to 1.2 seconds.

The tempo is therefore not an absolute value, but describes the relationship between the length of the notes. The notation of note symbols developed over the course of the Middle Ages and the early modern period. Instead of specifying a number, Italian terms such as Adagio for slow, Andante for calm and Allegro for fast are often used in classical music. The exact speed is then a matter of interpretation. Allegro, for example, would be tempo 130 for quarter notes.