How to Beatmatch With Phrasing

NotInMyBooks's "How to Beatmatch Dance Music on Turntables" is a good introduction to a basic principle of d.j.ing, beatmatching two records to each other. But even after the records are beatmatched, there are further techniques that will make a mix between two records more smooth. One of these techniques is the principle of phrasing.

Instructions

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Things You’ll Need:

• two turntables
• d.j. mixer with "Cue" function
• headphones
• speakers
• two records you want to mix

1. While this technique is useful for mixing any records together, a general rule is to select two records that are similar in beats per minute. For this example we'll use Michael Jackson's "Beat It" and Prince's "Baby I'm a Star", two dance-pop tunes of roughly the same tempo.
2. Most pop music (and most music in general) has four beats to a bar. Beyond this, the music usually changes somewhat every four bars. major changes often happen after eight or sixteen bars. A vocal might start or end, a bass-line might drop, or a "breakdown" might come. Listen to both records and count where the major changes are. This will give you an idea of what the sections of each piece are. You can get really detailed here and note what each section is, how many bars, how much vocal or general instrumentation is going on. These sections are called "phrases."
3. Compare each track. Is there an obvious place for the second song to come in? A typical place is the vocal from the second song coming in during an instrumental break of the first track.
4. Begin playing your first record, in this case Michael Jackson's "Beat It." Listen to the bass and hi-hat sound when the guitar comes in. It's counting "1-2-3-4" very clearly. To beatmatch with phrasing, you need to be aware of which musical elements take a whole bar and which take two, but more importantly you need to be able to identify the tempo. Once you have the tempo, you can figure out bars. For example, the first guitar line of "Beat It" takes two bars, while "beat it, beat it," in the chorus only takes one.
5. Beatmatch the Prince record as described in NotInMyBooks's "How to Beatmatch Dance Music on Turntables." It's pretty simple to find the tempo, because Prince counts off "1-2-3-4" early on. After he counts it off, there is a short intro followed by an howlingly emotive vocalism marking the beginning of the next phrase.
6. While listening on your headphones, release the beginning of a phrase on the Prince record at the beginning of a phrase on the Michael Jackson record. You should hear not just the beats line up, but the phrases.
7. When you feel it is time, bring the level up on your mixer for the Prince track, and let it run. You can drop the Michael Jackson track at any time, and changes in the Prince song will happen in a very natural way, because the phrases are aligned.

Tips & Warnings

• Experiment. You never know what can work together. Especially when you are mixing between very different records, phrasing is your best friend.
• Some music isn't structured around four bar chunks, or aren't four-beat measures. A lot of Middle Eastern and Indian music is in five or seven or nine.