How important is tempo?

[Sven Golly]

I'm looking for feedback.

 

I hope your editor is going to add in all the missing periods at the end of each sentence.

 

 

[retrokeys]

Maybe I'm just being curmudgeonly but it sure does seem to me that among younger drummers especially the terms "groove, "pocket," and "feel" are a foreign language. They all seem to have come up on this thrash stuff and feel that every single played note should have a drum hit and a tempo at less than than 200 miles an hour is dragging. My current guy (who happens to be the leader's son so we can't use the hammer on him) gets to going so fast that brass players and singers can't catch a breath but I guess he thinks his friends dig it. It is getting so bad that I am thinking seriously of leaving this ensemble. Soo...how important is tempo?

Damned important.

[Sven Golly]

Okay, since this thread was resurrected, all drummers should be required by law to have a device like wmp mentioned.

 

The 3 best drummers I work with in Toronto all use (and swear by) the Beat Bug. Crappy website, great product.

 

Note that this only helps get tempos in the neighbourhood... it does nothing to help (and in fact may actually hinder) the groove, if the drummer can't accept tempo 'restrictions' and still play with feel.

[kanker.]

I've played with drummers who use a Beat Bug, and it can be annoying as hell. Drummers are easy to distract, and a Beat Bug will distract them quiker'n anything. My experience is that they pay so much attention to the Beat Bug and *trying* to keep the time straight that they loose all sense of groove and the time just gets weird. NOTHING replaces metronome practice, whatever the instrument....

[Meisenhower]

I've played with drummers who use a Beat Bug, and it can be annoying as hell. Drummers are easy to distract, and a Beat Bug will distract them quiker'n anything. My experience is that they pay so much attention to the Beat Bug and *trying* to keep the time straight that they loose all sense of groove and the time just gets weird. NOTHING replaces metronome practice, whatever the instrument....

 

I've also seen drummers get easily distracted by small dangling shiny objects too.

 

+1 on metronome practice at home

 

Once you're playing in the group situation, a drummer should be able to keep steady. It also helps if they actually listening to the bass player.

[J. Dan]

Once you're playing in the group situation, a drummer should be able to keep steady. It also helps if they actually listening to the bass player.

 

+1

 

Seems to me using one of those devices at a gig would be kind of the keyboard equivilent to one of those keyboards where the keys light up to tell you which one to press. By the time you're out playing it live, you should be able to play it. That means no lyrics for the singer, tab for the guitar player (or keyboard ), and no tempo metering device for the drummer. That's what practice is for.

 

Regardless of whether someone tends to play fast or slow or whatever, to me, consistency is the most important thing. If my drummer starts a song to fast, I'd rather have the whole thing be fast than slow it down halfway through. It seems like I've found very few drummers who are really rock solid with their tempos throughout the night. I've been fortunate to have been in bands with them. I'm reminded of it when I sit in with others.

[frogmonkey]

I believe the drummer law should mandate at least 1000 hours with a metronome.

 

To me, playing at the "correct" tempo is not as important as playing in the pocket, and having a groove that feels good. After playing with (and firing) a series of squirrely drummers over the last year, I'm finally playing with solid drums again.

 

The new young guy for the originals band is solid and precise! It makes grooving so easy, where before everything was effort!

 

And the cover band is recording a new demo, so at rehearsal the drummer played with a click and stayed locked in. Thank you, good drummers.

[Sven Golly]

Perhaps some clarification of my post is in order; the use of the Beat Bug (at least by my peers) is not to tie them to a strict tempo throughout the tune, but merely to give them a quick reference to where the tempo is sitting, and to allow them to deftly manage things, as opposed to the draconian system imposed by a rigid click track. If it's all live musicians, then tempo can and will (and, IMO, should) drift a bit. These devices simply allow the drummer to see how far things may be straying, whether by their own doing, or, say, during the guitar or piano intro.

 

Anyway, different strokes for different folks; just putting another tool into the toolbox for folks to know about, instead of trying to hammer nails in with a wrench.

[Magpel]

I've had thoughts about this for a long while, though I am late to the main discussion.

 

For me, every song has tempo tolerances, a BPM sweet spot in which the groove and melody work. For some songs, it can be a generous range with room for error and extemporaneous re-interpretation... For others, it's a tick or two in either direction at most, and "feel death" is the consequence for being off.

 

While groove sweet spot is a huge concern, I find the effect of tempo on lead vocal is more often the critical factor for me. A tempo-sensitive lead vocal part can be nigh unsingable if the tempo is off. When counting off, I usually sing a snip of verse and a snip of chorus in my head (well, sometimes aloud I must admit). Not infallible, but it seems to improve the odds that we'll find the sweet range.

[Edgar Summers]

Years ago I was playing with a band where the drummer REALLY jacked up the tempo. Think "Working for the Weekend" by Loverboy at 145 or so.

 

I wasn't aware of this until we started recording ourselves live. It made a real impression me at the time. I'd like to say we had no more tempo problems after that but it did help moderate some of the speed.

 

A metronome and playing with click tracks has helped me a lot.

[BlackandWhite]

Nothing sucks the life out of a tune like playing it too fast. Even just a few clicks ruins the groove.

 

Yes, I'm definitely in this camp. The first song of the first concert I ever attended was Kansas, playing "Song for America." I loved that band and song, but was really bummed, even at 15 years old, at how they had ruined (IMO) the song, by playing it some 6-10 bpm faster than the recording.

 

In my experience, some drummers, on some songs, need to play to a metronome, at least during early rehearsals to get the feel of the song.

[clpete]

Here's one.

A few years ago a drummer, I play with sometimes, starting using the "Tempo Ref". He used to have real tempo issues. Since he started a lot of the songs, using it to start with the right tempo was a real plus. Last time I played with him he wasn't using it, but I think that playing with it he discovered how to keep the tempo consistent.

 

Great drummers have a built in metronome and don't allow volume, energy or other players affect the tempo.

 

[J. Dan]

I kind of think of a drummer as having 2 primary responsibilities, and I think a lot of people confuse these.

 

1) Lock down the tempo - be structure for everything else to follow rythmically, and keep everybody in time. These are the downbeats. Any style of music, no matter how much groove, or feel, or swing, or whatever, will lock to the downbeats.

 

2) Listen to the band, and add rythmically to the song. This is the groove. If it's a fill, it better end on 1 - under no circumstances should job#2 affect job#1. If you can't do it without affecting #1, don't do it. But this is where all the feel, groove, swing, shuffle, whatever comes into play - between the downbeats. And how much it "grooves" is a factor or how well he interacts with the bass and other players.

 

A good drummer can lock to a click or metronome and still have feel or groove - because it's all about everything he's doing between those clicks. If he can't follow a click, he probably can't follow the "click" in his head either when it's not there - those are the guys who will drift. And if other band members start to drift, it's the drummer's job to pull them back, whether there's a metronome or not.

 

I think a lot of people confuse some of these things and think rigid tempo means rigid playing - it doesn't have to. There are places for drifts in tempo - like a ritard at the end of a song or leading into a break. Certain songs have tempo changes in them as well. But that's different.

[David Loving]

Here's one.

Great drummers have a built in metronome and don't allow volume, energy or other players affect the tempo.

 

That's just part of having good time.

[Eric Iverson]

I remember Miles Davis' band used to play music from "Kind of Blue" etc. way faster after a while, but mostly because they were tired of playing the same tunes over and over....

I don't think you could fault Tony Williams for time.

 

And Clapton went back and recorded "Layla" way slower for the second version - of course, it WAS his tune...

 

Not that you guys are talking about this kind of scenario.....

[Meisenhower]

I remember Miles Davis' band used to play music from "Kind of Blue" etc. way faster after a while, but mostly because they were tired of playing the same tunes over and over....

I don't think you could fault Tony Williams for time.

 

Not to ever want to second guess Miles, but hearing them play "So What" at breakneck speed seemed to ruin the tune for me. It lost something in it's translation to speed.

 

Secondly, when' it's played that fast, it simply becomes "Impressions".

 

 

[JeffLearman]

I have a tendency to rush certain songs or grooves, especially really slow ones. One of the great things about the drummer I play with is that when I do, I can tell right away because there I am, out ahead of the drummer.

 

A lot of amateur drummers have a bad habit of amplifiying those who rush. It's not pretty.

[JohnH]

Tempos are very important. Some songs we like them faster, others have to be right on tempo. It just depends. Songs like Hotel Calif cannot be rushed. Just try singing those lyrics rushed or playing that guitar solo rushed- like I've had to recently a couple of times...GRRRRRR!!!! Since the click station is discontinued, I need to go get a tempo readout thing like Dave mentions here. I have a drum machine I use it home for a metronome, maybe I should just start bringing that to gigs like we used to and setting the tempos that way. I did a gig with a Journey tribute last year and one of the things I did when relearning those famous ballads (which I've played dozens of times before) was getting the tempos and practicing to the click. It helped alot! When I went to see this same band a couple of weeks ago it really irritated me to see those same ballads rushed. Ya just can't do em that way man! The real band is playing to a click these days.

[grooveclock]

So,What if there was a method created that actually did something about time issues,explained them,and taught not only drummers but all musicians to be not just good followers of clicks or pocket-less drummers? I believe the best players have that internal clock. That ability to create truly accurate rhythm and steady time.They create good tempo and act like a vacuum for the time.They can recognize it in other players and feed it...Yeah it's important...More important than playing in tune? As much at least.Study it

[EscapeRocks]

We have actually spent a considerable amount of time working on the tempo of every song we play. One thing with covering Journey, is that some of their studio recordings do not translate well to live performance as far as tempo is concerned.

 

Those few songs tend to really drag. So we listen to a number of their live performances to see what tempo works best.

 

Neal himself once commented on this and pretty much said the same thing as far as studio versus live versions.

 

Anyway, tempo is very important. Groove, feel, etc..whether it's a slow song or a fast song, is what makes the song.

 

Luckily we have a drummer who is a human metronome when it comes to tempo.

 

 

[keyclick]

For some reason that recent Dr. Dre commercial for Dr. Pepper is coming to mind... the one where he places a can of Dr Pepper on the turntable of a DJ playing too fast techno to an empty dance floor... and the dance floor fills up to the new, slower groove!

 

I play a lot of G. Dead, and I have certain favorite tempos for some songs. ie the Europe 72 versions... I have a hard time with later, faster versions of that stuff. At some point Eyes of the World went from a mellow lilting tune to speed jazz in the 80's!

 

 

[harmonizer]

For what it's worth, I'll add that we have had some success "selling" certain members of our covers band on using slower tempos by convincing them that sometimes there is more power and impact when using a slower tempo. "You will seem like a more cool rock and roll drummer if we do it this way" - this message seems to work better than "playing it slower is the right way, or the better way".

[Bottom End]

Drummers and bass players, at a minimum, MUST have a great sense of timing. As a bass player, I feel that I am the anchor to the song, let the keys, guitars, etc go off on their solos and such, even let the drummer lay out a bit, but I'm keeping the rhythm and the groove on track for them to come back to.

 

Too many live acts ruin songs by unintentionally starting fast and getting faster.

[grooveclock]

Thank you for humbly accepting part of your "role" as time keeper instead of laying it on drummers solely as it appears frequently.But in my experience anyone who steps into that realm of timekeeper or contributor to the groove by playing a definite rhythm esp.ostinato can have an undo influence on the groove.So,the more everyone's time is happening,the tighter everything is.In other words what you are saying is true but don't let anyone off the hook.

[grooveclock]

The metronome is like a crutch.It's a great start but you've got to get beyond it and internalize it"inchronize".

[grooveclock]

Thanks for making the distinction between tempo and time.True Tempo is the decided bpm or range (i.e. allegro,largo etc.)and time is the steadiness or flow of it.

[SK]

grooveclock: good advice on this topic.

The metronome is like a crutch.It's a great start but you've got to get beyond it and internalize it"inchronize".

[kanker.]

The metronome is like a crutch.It's a great start but you've got to get beyond it and internalize it"inchronize".

BS. No matter who you are or how far you've gotten or how long you've played, the ONLY thing that can tell you where you are in time when you practice alone is the metronome. You don't practice with it exclusively, but it's damn important - period.

[SK]

A metronome is important and essential for learning correct time, but what I took from what he's saying is, it can become like a crutch if you don't internalize it. You don't take a metronome to a gig, but you should check your playing with a metronome from time to time at any stage (or age) of playing.

[SpaceNorman]

Put me down as a vote for the "groove trumps correct tempo" view on life. As a survivor of numerous tempo wars in bands past - I've learned that I absolutely hate the feel (or better stated as lack thereof) created when somebody feels that they need to singlehandedly fix a tempo mid-tune. My current project tends to play things a little bright (a couple BPM faster then the studio originals we're covering). As long was we find a groove with it - I'm happy. Fortunately, ours is a group tendency and not one of those situations where we're battling each other throughout the night.