tempo?

cliff richard

cliff richard

New member
Hi folks,

i write songs on my piano or guitar and each time a play them they sound spot on. However when i start to record them on my pc i can never seem to get the tempo right. If i set the thing to 78bpm more than likely i will decide afterwards that it should of been 80bpm and have to re-record. My question is, how do you find out the tempo of your songs as mine always seem to sound better when i dont play to one?
 
It seems to me that when you are playing a song you are concentrating on your performance. Once recorded you can actually take the time to concentrate on listening to it. Upon hearing it for the first time so to say, is when you start to make decisions as to tempo, should there be another chorus, should I add a bridge, is it to long, is it to short etc.
So my feeling on this is you may not be able to get around this problem???
You could possibly only record a short section and take a listen and determne if your tempo is actuallly where you want it.
This would at least save you the time of doing the whole tune over??
 
This is just an idea;

When you are playing and instrument, there is a lot of stuff going on in your head that does not go on when someone is just listening. It is like your brain is running at a different speed to cope with thinking about correct fingerings, chords, dynamics, etc.

Try singing your songs without an instrument. If the song has instrumental parts, just sing those. Snap you fingers or clap your hands along with it. You can do this in the car, the shower, wherever. Pretend you are an average guy just listening to it on your car radio. Do it off and on for a couple of days. By doing this, you are doing what listeners do when they sing along with a song on the radio. This may help you get your song into just the right groove. Once you have that tempo really locked in, grab a metronome and set it to your "sing-along" tempo.

I bet this tempo will feel perfect when you are just singing, but may feel a little awkward at first when you start playing piano or guitar.

Let me know if this helps.
 
Yeah, thats the way i usually work it and for some reason i never quite get it right. Just when i think ive cracked it, i record the thing only to decide later it was wrong. Maybe im just being too fussy, but isnt it funny how a 1bpm change in tempo can make a world of difference to a song!!! Thanks for the advice though.
 
Not sure what you are recording onto your PC, but if it is MIDI into a sequencer (as opposed to audio), but you should be able to record MIDI and then fool with the tempo after the fact to see what works (to avoid re-playing).
 
I wish I could help answer your question but I think you should just do whatever is best for you when you are writing your songs, because I could tell you how I do the tempo decision but it might not work for you.


My main objective is to help sustain musical interest. And the relationship between the tempo and the forms, whether they be many sections, long or short.

Lyrically the tempo is based on what you're saying. The subject matter.

If you are writing from the music first then you are more free to do what you want and in that case whatever tempo I play the song after I practice it 1000 times is the tempo that I set the click track when ready to record.

Just get it on tape and let it go, if you get too wishy washy it'll drive ya bonkers.
 
Firstly, thanks to all for your help.

Ive just spent a full day laying down some acoustic guitar tracks. I think the advice that sackbut gave me on tapping along to the tune for a few days before-hand definately helped me a bit, and the bit that real buzzer mentioned about getting too wishy washy probably summed up my predicament. Anyway, after much experimentation i have found that the best way to determine the tempo is simply to experiment with it. Just play it again and again until it feels good. With a bit of luck you sometimes discover a fresh few lines along the way. Come to think of it, thats what i was doing in the first place!!! Oh well, atleast i know its ok to do it that way now........cheers all
 
I almost always record a couple of MIDI tracks first and then a vocal That way I can change the MIDI tempo with limited need to re-record
 
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