"Beats per minute" redirects here. For the rate of heart beats, see Heart rate.
The first two measures of Mozart's Sonata XI, which indicates the tempo as "Andante grazioso" and a modern editor's metronome marking: "♪ = 120".
Tempo (Italian for 'time' from the Latin tempus[1]) is the speed of a song or piece of music. It is measured in beats per minute, or BPM. For example, if a song has 4 beats per bar at 100 BPM, there will be 25 bars per minute.