How can people tell things like the time signature, key, and BPM of a song just by listening to it?

Question

How can people tell things like the time signature, key, and BPM of a song just by listening to it?

In: 1

Answer 1

Anyone who has any sort of musical learning (piano lessons, beginning band, choir) should be able to identify most common time signatures and peats per minute as it is taught fairly early on.

The key is a lot more challenging for most people outside of it being major/minor. I had 20 plus years of piano/band/orchestra and I couldn’t tell you the key of a song without looking at the sheet music.