RPM: Shortest and Longest Mixes

One thing that I've loved watching over on my good friend Glen Stollery's blog is the record of the shortest and longest tracks in BODYCOMBAT. As a participant, it didn't really think about the lengths of tracks, I just always assumed that every song was the same amount of time and it all worked out nicely.

He wrote a very good post about the importance of planning your playlist, and when I first started out teaching, I just cribbed together the songs I liked without any thought of regard of how long or short the class ended up being.

I didn't have to worry so much when I was covering early morning classes and evening classes at my sponsor club. In the morning and evenings during the weekdays, there was no conflict or back-to-back classes so it didn't matter if your playlist was a couple of minutes over.

My first class, however, was a Saturday morning class. Initially, the class was at 8am and the next class was BODYPUMP at 9am. In theory, that was enough time for me not to worry too much about my mix being too long, but there was a problem. The gym only opened at 8am. Week in, week out, it was a frantic mess trying to get the class started as soon as I possibly could. The gym staff wouldn't let me in early to allow me to set up the mic, the music and my bike, and heaven forbid if I should happen to have any new people in my class that needed their bikes setting up.

The start time varied from 8:05am to 8:15am and I'd be starting the class to generally a bunch of irritated members.

Finally, the management saw sense and made the official start time of the class 8:15am. It meant though that those who came in to do RPM and BODYPUMP had absolutely zero time in between classes.

At that time, I was teaching the Saturday class once every second week. I started paying much more attention to how long my playlist was, and the members absolutely appreciated it when it was my turn to teach. The weeks it wasn't my turn, the class often ran late because the other instructor added tracks in and the class would push to well beyond 45 minutes. I can imagine for a regular participant who wanted to maximise their Saturday morning, it would have been unbelievably frustrating.

So! The information that Glen has posted on his blog has been awesome for planning BODYCOMBAT mixes, I'm now going to do the same for RPM.

I don't have the entire RPM back catalogue at my disposal - I'm missing a few of the earlier releases, so if you know of any tracks that should be on these lists, please let me know! These are the times that display in my iTunes, so they might vary slightly compared to what shows on the CD cases or to what shows in your music management software.

SHORTEST RPM MIX
TRACK 1 - RPM 43 - Closer - 3:59
TRACK 2 - RPM 05 - Oya Como Va - 4:35
TRACK 3 - RPM 01 - Road To Nowhere - 4:32
TRACK 4 - RPM 40 - Let Go - 3:47
TRACK 5 - RPM 26 - Don't Worry Baby - 4:33
TRACK 6 - RPM 03 - Mysterious Times - 5:02
TRACK 7 - RPM 03 - Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For - 4:49
TRACK 8 - RPM 53 - Busy - 2:55
TRACK 9 - RPM 43 - Love Is A Losing Game - 2:34

Total: 36:43

LONGEST RPM MIX
TRACK 1 - RPM 52 - Beautiful People - 5:52
TRACK 2 - RPM 39 - Who Knew & RPM 50 - Teenage Dream - 6:11
TRACK 3 - RPM 52 - Rhythm Of The Night - 7:04
TRACK 4 - RPM 53 - Kings And Queens - 6:00
TRACK 5 - RPM 36 - Painkiller - 6:53
TRACK 6 - RPM 50 - Poppiholla - 7:11
TRACK 7 - RPM 30 - Going Insane - 7:28
TRACK 8 - RPM 41 - Umbrella - 4:25
TRACK 9 - RPM 26 - She Will Be Loved - 4:30

Total: 56:57

First thing to observe is the massive contrast in the lists - the difference between the longest mix and the shortest mix is 20 minutes and 14 seconds. Sweet zombie hitler.

Next thing is that nearly all of the tracks in the longest playlist are from recent releases, answering a question that a lot of RPM instructors have on their minds; "Are RPM releases getting longer?" It's becoming more and more of a struggle to fit a class in 45 minutes, and the majority of releases that are coming out of LMI now are more around the 50-55 minute mark. I generally aim for 46 minutes on my mix and start my class at 8:14am, minor enough a difference so that my participants won't notice it.

A couple of tracks from RPM 53 make their appearance in both of the mixes - the shortest ride home and the longest mixed terrain.

I have seen RPM 54 and RPM 55 is currently in the works and I don't particularly recall any one track being longer than the rest, though I often don't notice the length of the tracks until the release is being practised by the presenters for workshop.

Knowing the length of each track is powerful in not only ensuring that your class runs on time, but also planning a focus for your class. I've mentioned before that I was stunned by how when I took on my first class about how poorly they were riding. It wasn't their fault, they just needed some guidance and education. Knowing which tracks I could use to help with this (it is a 'class' after all, some learning and teaching involved!) helped me to plan mixes with a focus. I'll share a few of these down the line.

If you haven't read Glen's post of planning your playlist, I highly encourage you to do so. I know having an awareness of what I'm putting together has become quite vital in the success of my classes, and the ones that have been less effective have been the ones that have put together with less care.

Anything that can increase our effectiveness, in my mind, can only be a good thing.