I was notified of a local theater production hosting a staged reading and I wanted to audition. The auditions aren’t for another few weeks, but as part of the audition, I need to sing 32 bars of a modern musical song and then give a conflicting one minute monologue. I can handle the monologue, but what the hell is a bar?
In: 5
In music, there is a time signature, which is the two numbers, one over another. This indicates the number of notes in a “set”. These sets are sort of like sentences in writing, and are called ‘bars’. They are usually indicated by a vertical line. “32 bars” in this case means the amount of a song you are asked to sing, based on the sheet music for that song.
Break a leg!
A “bar” is a unit of length in music. The time signature (something like 4/4 or 6/8) tells you how long it is. For example, music in 4/4 time has 4 (top number) quarter notes (bottom number) per bar. Music in 6/8 time has 6 (top number) eighth notes (bottom number) per bar.
If you look at the sheet music, you’ll see each bar marked off by vertical lines separating it from the bars on either side. [Here’s an image](https://i.imgur.com/0yJKPRO.png). This music is in 3/4 time, so each bar lasts 3 quarter notes. In the melody (the three notes at the top of the bar), these are actually 3 quarter notes; in the bass (the single note at the bottom), it’s a dotted half note (which is a half note + half a half note = a half note plus a quarter note = 3 quarter notes in length). This image contains 16 total bars of music.
Ok, I’m an actual musician (unlike the two before me…..) a bar is a measure. It’s called that because of the literal bar that denotes the measures. A 32 bar solo is a pretty decent length, but also not crazy. Probably 1 minute at most, but that really depends on he tempo.
A bar (formally: a *measure*) is a time unit consisting of a number of beats. So, if a song is in “common time” (4/4), a bar has four beats each lasting a quarter note. Most popular music in the Western world is in common time. I suggest you watch a few music theory videos to get up to speed on this kind of jargon as it is so common. Bars and measures tend to be explained quite early.
Good luck with the audition.
it depends on the timing. if you have access to the sheet music, the time is indicated at the beginning of the staff (The staff is the 5 horizontal lines that go across the page). It’s represented as a numeric fraction just after the clef.
Since music on the broad scale is rhythmic, you can usually just listen and count the beats. Pick a specific instrument sound that’s repetitive, a good choice is the bass drum. Count to 4 in time with the beat, chances are, you’ll start to notice the other instruments are repeating to the same count.
Most contemporary music is in 4/4 time. For these, a bar or measure is 4 beats.
32 bars of music in 4/4 time will be 128 beats.
https://www.musicnotes.com/now/tips/a-complete-guide-to-time-signatures-in-music/#:~:text=In%20sheet%20music%2C%20the%20time,simple%2C%20compound%2C%20and%20complex.
A bar is a measure of music. In music that’s 4/4 time, a bar will equal 4 beats. That being said, from what I learned in my vocal performance degree, if they’re asking you to prepare 32 bars, they don’t need you to literally count out the bars, they usually want approximately 45 seconds to a minute of singing. In old musical theatre (Rodgers and Hammerstein era) 32 bars would be a verse and chorus and basically come out to 1 minute of music.
TL;DR prepare a minute of music for your audition and you should be good. Break a leg!
I have a second level of explanation:
32 isn’t a random number here. Songs in classical musicals often follow the “32 bar form,” in which each verse is 32 bars, often with an AABA pattern where the first phrase (8 bars) sets a melody, the second phrases (8 bars) repeats that melody with new words, the third phrase (8 bars) is a contrasting new melody, and the fourth phrase (8 bars) returns to the original melody.
Think of “Over the Rainbow”:
First phrase:
>Somewhere over the rainbow
>Way up high
>There’s a land that I heard of
>Once in a lullaby
Second phrase, melody repeats:
>Somewhere over the rainbow
>Skies are blue
>And the dreams that you dare to dream
>Really do come true
Third phrase, new melody:
>Someday I’ll wish upon a star
>And wake up where the clouds are far behind me
>Where troubles melt like lemon drops
>Away above the chimney tops
>That’s where you’ll find me
Fourth phrase, return to first melody:
>Somewhere over the rainbow
>Bluebirds fly
>Birds fly over the rainbow
>Why then, oh, why can’t I?
All of which is too say this: they want you to sing one verse from a song.
they’re asking for 2 verses. or a verse and a chorus.
Wake me up by avicii. the count is 2. verse is 32 bars, the chorus is 16.
Another one bites the dust by Queen, the count is 4, the verse is 8 bars, as is the chorus.
personally i feel that wake me up has double length verses. great song tho.
ok others have told you what a bar is. but not sure that’s useful. if you’ve got the sheet music or maybe there guitar tab you should be able to see the bars being shown, literally by the lines that break the music up into bars. get the sheet music if you can.
otherwise you’re going to have to work it out. songs get very creative with time signatures so it might be tricky. usually there’s a 4 count in the song, sometimes a 3 count (yes there might be 2, 6 or 8 count. if you listen to stargazer, all bets are off, they manage to get people dancing to different rythms inside the same song).
if you can find the count, that’s the repeating way of counting on the beat of the song that repeats and breaks the song up in a logical way. you might have heard a band member starting a song with “one, two, three, four” that’s the count) one count to 4 will often be a bar. the count will normally be quite slow, around 2 a second, but again, varies by song. the beat is consistent tho, it’s not the same as the melody notes, which might hang and pause over the top of the beats.
there’s no space in the count, it’s “1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4” consistently. if you find yourself counting to 3 and hanging for a bit, you’ve got a 4th beat that the song is just not accenting. some songs swing, with “1 … 2,3 … 4,1 … 2,3 … 4,1 …” but that’s usually the most variance.
often there’s a kick or bass drum that’s your best resource, and it usually hits on beats 1&3 of a 4 beat bar (like everything, this varies). high energy dance might hit the kick every beat (4 on the floor).
so find the beat, find the count, find the length of the count, that’s your bar. group your bars into 4 bars. that’s often a line. 4 lines is a verse. 32 bars is usually 2 verses or a verse and a chorus.
and as always, not always, depends on the song. playing with structure and rhythm is what adds interest to a lot of songs. subverting expectations and bringing something new.
These explanations are so funny because I feel like none of them are actually helpful 😂😂 people that understand music have no idea how little other people understand. Like is the length of a bar or measure standardized to where it’s some ratio of notes happening within some standard amount of time? Or is a 6/8 twice as long as a 3/4? Or do those take place in the same interval of time but with shorter notes?
As others have said, a bar is just a way of dividing music into smaller pieces, usually for ease of counting rests, length of notes and entries and exit points; and making rehearsal marks, like “Everyone that was awful after bar 35, can we go back to 20 and get the latest entry right please “.
The numerical notation of the “time signature” is just about which notes in the bar get a bit of extra ‘oomph’.
Slower, melodic music will generally be in x/4 or x/8 (I once saw a x/16), as the first beat of the bar is generally given at bit extra attention by the players. Faster music intended to be more energetic, such as dances, will often have x/3 or x/2 as more of the notes get stressed as the start of the bar.
The actual speed of the bars is determined by the composer in the first instance with markings like: allegro, accelerando, adagio, etc. While not entirely prescriptive, they have some generally accepted speeds in terms of beats per minute, sometimes also noted as (note)=[number]; which indicated how many of those notes should be in a minute. The higher the number, the faster the song. These are usually quarter notes per minute, but will vary according to the piece in question.
{Please note these are different to volume notations such as crescendo or diminuendo (get louder or softer), forte (loud) or piano (quiet), which are often used in the same place and font in sheet music.}
But often in practice, the speed of an orchestra is determined by the conductor, who may decide to increase or decrease the speed of the whole song or just sections, based on whatever they feel is appropriate. A great example is the the end of a lot of symphonic music, where the conductor slows down to hold on to loud, rich chords.
So to answer the question of ‘how long in seconds is 32 bars’ the answer really is it depends on the song. But as a lot of theatre types have chimed in that 45-60 seconds should be sufficient for a verse or two and maybe a chorus, go with that.
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