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How's your tempo?

BassyBill

BassyBill

Gold Supporting Member
In Memoriam
Mar 12, 2005
18,174
4,621
West Midlands UK
#1
As one of the mods for this forum I thought I should contribute a bit of a fun thread as I've not posted a lot in GI for ages. So, here's a little musical activity for you guys.

1) Turn any music that you have playing off. Then think of a song you know very well but maybe haven't heard for a while and make it "play in your head". Just groove along with it in your imagination for a bit. Pay attention to the tempo - how close are you to the original, do you think?

2) With the song still going along in your head, visit this site and tap the space bar on your keyboard in time with the beat for a minute or so (may be less, depends on the song, really). How constant is your tempo?

Tap for Beats Per Minute BPM

3) Now find a recording of the song, maybe on YouTube, and play it for real. Use the tempo measurement tool again. How close were you?

Then post your results here if you like. I suggest this format.

SONG: Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours - Stevie Wonder
TEMPO IN MY HEAD: 111 bpm
ACTUAL TEMPO: 108 bpm

Just for fun, and maybe a bit of self-awareness?
 
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#3
Not bad at all, Febs! Here's another try from me.

SONG: Hang up your hang ups - Herbie Hancock
TEMPO IN MY HEAD: 116 bpm
ACTUAL TEMPO: 110 bpm at the beginning, up to 122 or more in later sections! Records always had more dynamic tempos in the days before click tracks (obviously) and were better for it I think. The obsession with rock steady tempo that you get with a click track is not really very musical in my opinion. Anyway, I'm calling this one a win for me. :D



(I've included the YouTube link for people to have a go at the same tune themselves if they fancy it. It's interesting to watch how the tempo creeps up if you keep tapping along during the entire tune.)
 
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#4
I just absolutely nailed Chic's Good Times at 110 bpm and Stevie Wonder's I Wish at 106. I'd worry if I was out on either of those as I've played them both so many times. It also explains my extreme frustration when our keyboard player starts off the latter at about 90 bpm and then accuses me of playing too fast. :spit:
 
#8
This time I tried a couple of quicker ones.

SONG: Happy Hour - Housemartins
TEMPO IN MY HEAD: 195 bpm
ACTUAL TEMPO: 193 bpm

SONG: Love For Sale - Buddy Rich Big Band (the version on Big Swing Face)
TEMPO IN MY HEAD: 240 bpm
ACTUAL TEMPO: starts off about 214 bpm and drifts up to about 226. So I was about 10% too quick in my head for this one.
 
#11
Song: Stars and Stripes Forever
Tempo in my head: 120
Actual tempo: 119.5

Song: Under Pressure (reality tour version)
Tempo IMH: 110.5
Actual tempo: 112

I will have to try it with a few of the songs my band is doing recently. Solid tempo that sticks with me is one of my stronger suits (sight reading being abysmal).
 
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#12
BassyBill said:
As one of the mods for this forum I thought I should contribute a bit of a fun thread as I've not posted a lot in GI for ages. So, here's a little musical activity for you guys.

1) Turn any music that you have playing off. Then think of a song you know very well but maybe haven't heard for a while and make it "play in your head". Just groove along with it in your imagination for a bit. Pay attention to the tempo - how close are you to the original, do you think?

2) With the song still going along in your head, visit this site and tap the space bar on your keyboard in time with the beat for a minute or so (may be less, depends on the song, really). How constant is your tempo?

Tap for Beats Per Minute BPM

3) Now find a recording of the song, maybe on YouTube, and play it for real. Use the tempo measurement tool again. How close were you?

Then post your results here if you like. I suggest this format.

SONG: Signed, Sealed, Delivered, I'm Yours - Stevie Wonder
TEMPO IN MY HEAD: 111 bpm
ACTUAL TEMPO: 108 bpm

Just for fun, and maybe a bit of self-awareness?
Click to expand...

Quoting my OP just so folks joining the thread don't have to look too hard for what it's all about.
 
#14
SONG: It Makes No Difference, The Band
TEMPO IN MY HEAD: 64 bpm
ACTUAL TEMPO: 62 bpm

SONG: Money, Pink Floyd
TEMPO IN MY HEAD: 118 bpm
ACTUAL TEMPO: 116 bpm

SONG: Already Gone, Eagles
TEMPO IN MY HEAD: 140 bpm
ACTUAL TEMPO: 144 bpm

SONG: Turning Japanese, The Vapors
TEMPO IN MY HEAD: 181 bpm
ACTUAL TEMPO: 178 bpm

SONG: Tarkus, Emerson Lake & Palmer
TEMPO IN MY HEAD: 225 bpm
ACTUAL TEMPO: 218 bpm

This is fun! :hyper:
 
Last edited:
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#15
Excellent practice tool!!! Many decades ago, before Bass Player Magazine split off from Guitar Player Magazine, there was an interview with a then-well-known bassist who I can't remember who all these years later. I have to throw in a slight digression - when driving through the tunnel under Mobile Bay, which I have done several times over the decades, you lose radio signal for a couple of minutes. OK - his point was that, as a bass player, if you are tapping your feet along to the beat of a song on the radio as you enter the tunnel, then when you come out, if you are not in sync with the radio, it better be because the recording is off, not your rhythm.

There is a physiological reason for folks wanting to drag fast tempi and rush slow tempi.

As bassists, we are especially vulnerable to Vierordt's Law, or why we tend to drag fast tempi and rush slow tempi. In the 1860's, Karl von Vierordt, a German physician, and professor of theoretical medicine and physiology at the University of Tubingen, studied why all people tend to rush slow tempi and drag fast tempi. He found that it is a physiological tendency, independent of any amount of musical talent. It is common among all people, when left to their own devices, i.e., without a metronome or other tempo keeper, to tend to gravitate to @94bpm, which, of course, we term moderato, and which Vierordt termed the "indifference point" of tempo.

Here is a link to a radio blog that discusses Vierordt's Law in the context of Beethoven tempi. If you can get through the first half of it, which I actually agree with (everyone plays Beethoven too slowly), you get to the detailed explanation of Vierordt's Law and the demonstrations of both fast and slow tempi.

Speedy Beet - Radiolab

I find this especially enlightening. So not only do I have to be aware of Vierordt's Law, but I have the added inertia of getting more air (when I play tuba), bigger strings, etc., moving, and I'm usually at the back of the ensemble where, if I intoned at the time I hear what everybody else is playing, I would be late as it is heard out front. So I especially have to find that fine line between anticipation of the articulation of the beat, but not rushing, so that what comes out is on time and in tempo. In my smaller groups, I don't even necessarily listen to the rest of the band except for balance and tuning, and instead watch the drummer's right hand so that at the point the tip of his stick hits a cymbal or drum, at that exact same moment I have come off the string and have the beginning of tone. Nobody has ever defined what a drummer-bass player playing together "in the pocket" or "in the groove" is, so I say that if you can do what I have described consistently in time, tone, and style of the piece, that's as close to a definition as there is. I have never heard anybody else talk about it in that manner. They all say such nebulous phrases as, "listen closely" "connect," etc., without describing the actual mechanics of how you get there so the music can be developed.

Those of you who got within two bpm: GREAT JOB!!!
 
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#17
iiipopes said:
So I especially have to find that fine line between anticipation of the articulation of the beat, but not rushing, so that what comes out is on time and in tempo. In my smaller groups, I don't even necessarily listen to the rest of the band except for balance and tuning, and instead watch the drummer's right hand so that at the point the tip of his stick hits a cymbal or drum, at that exact same moment I have come off the string and have the beginning of tone.
Click to expand...

Wow. I never considered the "travel time" of the rear instruments of an orchestra catching up to the forward pieces. We went to an in-ear system at church and I get the drummer bleeding into the vocalists mics at a slight delay and it throws me off. I, too, watch the drummer to not be fooled.
 
#18
iiipopes said:
Nobody has ever defined what a drummer-bass player playing together "in the pocket" or "in the groove" is
Click to expand...
I was under the impression it is bad to anticipate the beat as the bass-player. The drummer can and should be right on top of the beat, but to avoid detracting from their percussive attack, we should play juuuuuust after the beat, or "in the back pocket" of the beat, which allows both drums and bass to sound great without any waveforms adding to harsh peaks, and creates the "groove".
 
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#19
Back when i used to practice all the time I'm sure I could have nailed this to the beat. In fact my ex would come in while I was practicing, turn down my stereo to talk to me, turn it back up and id be exactly in the right place. I doubt I can do that anymore. But I only practice once a week or so anymore. I still notice if someone is off tempo from a recording so maybe id do better than I think.

I also used to be able to tune to standard dead on without a tuner. Definitely no longer have that ability, and that was a really useful one.
 

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