What is your BPM?

    A lot of tunes I listened to while learning to play in my teenage years, from the radio, were usually sped up from the original LP or 45 in order to play more tunes and also fit in more commercial time. So older tunes as I recall had a faster tempo. However, I tend to lean toward a tempo based on the genre being played, as Paults suggested.

    I don't konw why but I use to Naturaĺly keep time with my foot in 1/8. I noticed this since one year or so but when I play I use to double the click. If the song is 70 bmp I "count" with my foot 140 bpm?(

    When practising, as a generalisation, beginning slower than the ideal tempo, focussing on accuracy and clarity and working up to, then beyond the ideal tempo, follows a military axiom, “train hard, fight easy.”


    Usually, as others have stated, tempo is more often than not guided by the expectations of the listener in any given genre. Or the audience expectation in a particular setting, a club, a wedding, a dance, etc.



    When I was first starting to learn about music in the late fifties, the commonly held understanding about this matter was that 120 BPM was the pace that people walked about in busy major cities. It was the pace of life.


    But there is rather more to this matter, for although this would not be true for most European Armies, the standard American Military Band marching tempo is 120 BPM. That’s one pulse every 30 seconds, easy to gauge with a time piece.



    Quite a few major record releases that were initially recorded slower in tempo, have been slightly adjusted in later final mix down or at the mastering stage to give the musical feel a bit more pep. Thus 120 BPM is the most common tempo for modern chart hit recordings.


    My experience for what it's worth has been that at times, the tempo the artist feels comfortable with, that they feel is the right tempo, (especially if the artist wrote the work and has lived with it a long time) is none-the-less felt by the producer to languish somewhat and needs a little something to “lift” it, in order for it to qualify as hit parade material, worth releasing as a single. Genre related again.



    Although this can change the pitch of instruments and affect a voice rather more dramatically. (So best to alter the speed before the vocals are added). If performed judiciously, such a tempo adjustment could be viewed as simply another production process, available to producers in an era of growing experimentation.


    Studer A-80 etc. Multi-Track Tape machines were fitted with a voltage adjuster on the rear of the unit, (mains voltages could drop if a session ran late into the small hours, and cause an unwanted slowing, but be thus adjusted for) but this facility could be also utilised to deliberately alter the pace of a recording for a variety of reasons.


    If you have ever played along with an instrument to an older vinyl recording one may have noticed that you’re in-tune instrument does not coincide with the pitch of the recording, regardless of whatever key one plays in. Given that cheaper players had a motor that was plus or minus to their target specification. Perfectly calibrated strobe players indicate that an adjustment in tempo had been made to the initial recording.



    Although in America composers normally use a tempo mark at the top of the opening page, indicating the precise ideal tempo envisaged.


    In contrast in Europe, by long historic tradition, Italian words and phrases are utilised to describe not only the tempo but also the sense of feeling and meaning of the music.


    If you look closely at a metronome along with Beats Per Minute, one will find the range of available tempos indicated by many different, specific sections, headed by such Italian words.


    The reason for this is that although a composer might well have an ideal tempo for their composition in mind. A conductor is aided by the afforded latitude in related tempos indicated by these sections within the metronomes full range.


    Dependant on the size of concert hall or room the music is to be performed in, the available degrees of adjustment in correct tempo enables the best tempo to be selected that works most optimally in the specific building the music is to be performed in, taking into account its acoustics and the absorption of sound the size of audience will provide.


    As for myself, I use an American tempo mark along with an Italian word or phrase at the heading of the opening page. This (I feel) affords the musicians a clear indication of both the ideal tempo, grants insight into the emotional feel of the music implied by the phrase, and also allows the conductor/musicians latitude within the relative range afforded to make necessary adjustments for the type of concert hall and size of audience encountered.