Hip Hop Forum

or is the "bar" system here messed up.
i grew up listening to 16 bars, and it seems like on this website
a bar is two lines that complement each other, while yet, me growin up a bar was just ONE line, not two. so in the tournament when i saw they had 6 bars, it was actually 12 lines, so im kinda lost.

No I Have Grown Up Knowing It Was Bar = 2 Lines

same look it up on google lol

oh i see what it is, it used to be considered one line, but now alot of people refer to it as 2 lines. but then if someone does a song thats 16 bars, to you guys it would be 8????

found this somewhere:
A bar consists of 4 FULL notes (or 8 1/2 notes, or 16 1/4, or a combination of notes & pauses).

For example:

(Row)=1, (Row)=1, (Row)=1 (your boat)=1
(Gently)=1 (down the)=1 (stream)=1 (silent)=1
(Merrily)=1 (Merrily)=1 (Merrily)=1 (Merrily)=1
(Life is)=1 (but a)=1 (dream)=1 (silent)=1

this is the real actual definition....this is how i was bought up.

I work with musicians and songwriters at GMIA and ASCAP and when working on songs, a bar is 1 line; however rap forums since I've been around was always 1 bar = 2 lines ( ref: typical 4/4 measure). I think 16 bars originated from some shit NAS did and it was actually 16 lines so it goes without saying that even in the realms of the hip hop industry (other than forums and such) a bar = 1 line.

But it's a never ending argument that really depends on the setting of the enviroment.

Doesnt Really Matter As long As Your Writing

- Mutual - wrote:Doesnt Really Matter As long As Your Writing

well, yeah, necessarily it does, it helps to structure songs. songs go 16 bars, 8 bars, 16 bars, 8 bars then another 16. (common structure)
like Riggz said, a bar is one line, but in rap forums (im new to these) it's two...iight just clarifying that, thanks for responding.

iight look forward to some of yah shit then

When I think of bar, I think of music, how about simplify it on yourself and only use the term lines, then you're set.

i have ALWAYS wrote 2 lines to equal a bar... but i sometimes count one line as one bar when i'm in the studio... so the way i write is as follows...

this is a part of the line that i write
and this is the part of the line as a closer

this is the part of the line that i write
and this is the part of the line as a closer

thats how i write i count it either as 2 bars or 4 lines...

just really simple easy math... haha

Seriously i have only been recording music for like 7 months.. All that terms and stuff dont really matter... when some1 listens to a track they dont care about the bars.. And it dont matter really about bars anyways.. not really speaking for every1 except me but when i write i have a beat playing and i just let the lyrics and flow come out.. it could look like this

this is the line im opening with
This is the line i am closing with

or

This is the line i am opening with this is the line i am opening with
This is the line i am closing with this is the line i am closing with

now in a beat the 1st one is 1 bar but if you look at it the second one takes twice the beat but its still 2 bars but it takes 4 bars of beat.. it all depends the kind of track you doing.. the longer bars are better for story telling and getting a point across.

Again this is just my opinion....

i would agree with you Deciple but people get paid for every 16 they write, atleast on features, i feel you gotta know your shit or else when you get into the booth and its time to record if you have to rewrite its gonna waste studio time therefore wastin money.

for some reason "textcees" changed the definition somewhere slick so for whatever reason in text battling/writing 1 bar = 2 lines but "bar" is actually a musical term meaning 4 beats so a bars length is dictated by the tempo of a beat & therefore doesn't have a standard length but its basically one line that isn't too long... a beat would have to be realllly super slow for 2 textcee lines to fit into one bar most text battle verses i see probably are closer to 2 bars a line instead of the other way around