How fast is 87 BPM?
Andante means walking pace, and the label is literal: a comfortable walk is around 80 to 100 steps a minute, so 72 to 95 BPM is the range the body accepts with no effort at all. It is the easiest place to start for anyone using a metronome for the first time.
87 BPM means 87 beats pass every minute. One beat lasts 689.7 milliseconds (0.69 seconds); counted in 4/4 a bar takes 2.76 seconds, so about 21.8 bars go by each minute. Over a three-minute song that is roughly 65 bars, or 261 beats.
A resting pulse sits around 60–80 beats per minute, so 87 BPM is roughly 1.2 times faster.
Note lengths at 87 BPM
Here is what each note value actually measures at 87 BPM. It is the table to check before subdivision practice, and the one producers reach for when setting time-based effects.
| Note value | Length | Per minute |
|---|---|---|
| Whole note (4 beats) | 2758.6 ms | 21.8 |
| Half note (2 beats) | 1379.3 ms | 43.5 |
| Quarter note (1 beat) | 689.7 ms | 87 |
| Dotted eighth note | 517.2 ms | 116 |
| Eighth-note triplet | 229.9 ms | 261 |
| Eighth note | 344.8 ms | 174 |
| Sixteenth note | 172.4 ms | 348 |
How to practise at 87 BPM
If this tempo is still out of reach, climb to it in three steps. Start at 61 BPM (70% of target) where you can watch what your hands are doing, move to 74 BPM (85%) to balance the sound, then go to 87 BPM. Only move up when you have played the passage five times in a row without a mistake. If the tempo is already comfortable, push to 96 BPM for a few passes and drop back — 87 BPM will feel roomy afterwards.
Try muting beats 1 and 3 and leaving the click on 2 and 4. The click then lands where the snare does, and you hear immediately whether you are pushing ahead of it or dragging behind. With half the clicks gone, keeping the pulse becomes your job rather than the metronome's.
Music that sits at 87 BPM
The same number is counted differently by genre. Hip-hop counts quarter notes, reggae leans on the offbeat skank — set the accent pattern to match and the click stops fighting the music.
- Boom-bap hip-hop (85–95 BPM)
- R&B and neo-soul
- Reggae and roots (80–90 BPM)
- Lo-fi hip-hop (70–90 BPM)
- Country ballads and folk
Frequently asked questions
How long is one beat at 87 BPM?
One beat lasts 689.7 milliseconds, or 0.69 seconds. A bar of 4/4 takes 2.76 seconds, an eighth note is 344.8 ms and a sixteenth note is 172.4 ms.
What tempo marking is 87 BPM?
The 72–95 BPM range is usually labelled Andante. Those boundaries were never fixed — different eras and composers used the terms differently — so treat the name as a description of character and the number as the measurement.
What if 87 BPM feels too fast?
Slowing down is not losing ground; it is buying accuracy. Work up from 61 BPM through 74 BPM to 87 BPM. Anything you repeat at a tempo where you make mistakes gets learned along with the mistakes, so the fastest tempo you can play cleanly is the tempo worth practising at.
How do I get a finer grid than 87 BPM?
Turn subdivision on at eighth notes and you hear the same grid as a 174 BPM click. The filled-in beat shows you which slot each note belongs to; once it is secure, switch subdivision off and let 87 BPM carry it again.
Tempos around 87 BPM
The neighbouring tempos you actually use: rungs of the practice ladder, and the half-time and double-time feels.