James Walker
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Reged: Mar 18 2002
Posts: 1281
Loc: Connecticut
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This may sound stupid, but...
I've found that if I internalize the time "in my gut," I'm pretty good at holding a given tempo. If I'm trying to keep the time steady with my brain, I'm screwed - it's too easy to second-guess what I'm doing. ("Am I rushing, or is the bass player dragging?...or is he just laying back on the beat, expecting me to keep my beat where it is?")
A guitarist I studied (jazz improv') with put it another way. For him, the key to playing music (in so many ways) is making it feel right (not to be confused with "I play what I feel, dude..."). He put it this way: if you're playing a slow blues, and you're really locked into what makes it feel right, you wouldn't dream of budging from the original tempo. Speeding up or slowing down would destroy the feel of the music.
As to the original topic: I can basically remember - "ball park" - where 120bpm is, by recalling the opening measures of "Stars and Stripes Forever." From there, with just a little bit of math, I can get to some other reference points: 60bpm, 90bpm, 180bpm, etc., and get pretty close to a requested tempo.
Having someone call 107, 113, 193, and being able to nail it? That's beyond my pay grade.
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Alistair
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Reged: May 17 2006
Posts: 572
Loc: New Zealand
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Tea - I meant hearing the tune in my head; remembering what it sounds like and the tempo.
James - I understand what you mean about feeling the tempo in your gut; if I think too hard about it, then the tempo rules me, not the other way round.
120 bpm = "Another one bites the dust" by Queen. When I was doing a paramedic course, the instructor told us to use this as the tempo for doing heart massage (of course, if you sang the lyrics, it might give out the wrong message).
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roger strange
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Reged: Dec 09 2003
Posts: 1621
Loc: Nova Scotia Canada
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Alistair. Now that's funny!
James. Spot on. I have always played form my center physically, that to me is my solar plexus or gut.
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Tea Bag
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Reged: Sep 16 2004
Posts: 1410
Loc: Canada
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Definitely practice or familiarity with the tune makes it easier to remember the tempo without thinking about it.. I just remembered, one of the guitar players
i mentioned (who always nails the meter) - on a rare occasion that we learned a new tune together as a band, I had to stop him several times over several practices,as he counted it in waaay too slow. I remember being very surprised he was so far off. So.. I guess familiarity breeds total meter recall!
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roger strange
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Reged: Dec 09 2003
Posts: 1621
Loc: Nova Scotia Canada
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That's pretty well it as far as copy tunes are concerned. Chart reading is a bit different for me because basically the meter is signified at the top left hand corner, so I usually use a small digital portable click the first time that's played in a band setting, but after that I'll know where the meter is with that tune. Where it can really get squirrely for me is when I am called in after all the other tracks are a finished product and no-one bothered to save the starter bar click count-in or the actual click track. I'll listen to the tune a couple of times with nothing but my hi-hat foot settling into the basic meter of the tune but I'll make note of the usual offender who either plays a little behind the meter or ahead. I did and do so many of those projects that I guess my "human metronome" has become at least pretty good. Like everything else we do in drumming, the more you do it, the better you get at doing it. I guess that's why, when I get on a huge practice jag with anything, I do two things. Always work to a metronome and always have a piece of melodic music in my mind as I practice. It's at the point now with me that even when I demonstrate something to my students I have to have a piece of music or tune running in my head. That's probably why I teach my kids to click in a time when they are practicing anything in drumming to set at least a relative tempo. One of the first things I teach the kids is how to click sticks to a click track by the way.
Edited by roger strange (Mon Jul 19 2010 12:28 AM)
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Tea Bag
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Reged: Sep 16 2004
Posts: 1410
Loc: Canada
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I find vocalizing or 'feeling' simple subdivisions also help in locking in the meter.. usually just the 'and'. In fact, the thing that got be started on this was recently playing new/original tunes with a songwriter who called out the meter i.e., 103 then counted it off with these great vocal sound effects for the sub-divisions that sounded like a drum machine. Got me thinking abut the 'human metronome'
re: the stick clicks.. my brother played in a 7-piece touring band many years ago, and he said they used to warm up before going on stage with everyone in the band standing in a circle and doing the 'clap'; where they all try to clap in perfect sync to different meters.. the theory is to get your mind and body attuned to each other and getting the blood flow going etc. so when everyone steps up to play they are all ready to lock in..
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TigerBill
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Reged: Mar 11 2002
Posts: 1659
Loc: NJ
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A great game to practice building your 'inner time clock' - which also works great for students too, is to play along to a metronome and shut off the sound for a bar or so, then turn it back on and see how close you are to being on the beat. As you get better at it, increase the number of bars the metronome is silenced for.
I start this type of workout with students at 120 bpm, a common tempo, and then work on the very slow and very fast tempos. You'll find the slower tempos to be much harder to keep perfectly in sync. There's that much more time to make mistakes!
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Tiger Bill Meligari
Tension Free Drumming
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roger strange
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Reged: Dec 09 2003
Posts: 1621
Loc: Nova Scotia Canada
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I remember years ago (in my 20s) going to an old cat for time studies. He set me up in a room with nothing but a ride and a hi-hat. Set a metronome at 120 bpm and started me playing quarters. He then picked up the metronome and left the room for half an hour and then came back. The first time I was out by alomost an 8th. By the sixth lesson doing this I was spot on. Then he started to teach me other things.
Edited by roger strange (Wed Sep 01 2010 02:18 PM)
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James Walker
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Reged: Mar 18 2002
Posts: 1281
Loc: Connecticut
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Quote:
A great game to practice building your 'inner time clock'
Great suggestion, Bill!
This sort of thing is "Reason #18" to have a drum machine or sequencer available in the practice room - to be able to program in some of these variables. "Three bars time, one bar silence," "two bars time, two bars silence," "six bars time, two bars silence," two clicks per measure, one click per measure, clicks every other measure, etc., etc., etc. The possibilities are pretty much endless.
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Tea Bag
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Reged: Sep 16 2004
Posts: 1410
Loc: Canada
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That's all great stuff.. another option (if you don't have a programmable drum machine) is to record a click at various speeds on your computer (say with the free Audacity) and cut out spaces or gaps - then burn the tracks onto a CD.
It also occurred to me that it is possible to recall any meter using the following technique - although it's a bit of work;
- there's a well known memory technique of associating a wild visual image that has some connection to the thing you are trying to remember. For example, to lock in a date of say 'March 20' you could think of a Roman legion of soldiers 'marching' with a $20 bill on their helmet (maybe in the 'ides of March').. weird I know but once you make the connection it sticks in your head and you can file it away and recall it quickly (usually without having to resort to conjuring the picture).
- so using the same technique you could associated various well known songs with their meters.. maybe as signposts - so for example; find tunes with increments of 5 beats i.e., 80, 85, 90 etc. Then if someone calls out 150, you can dial up a tune with same meter in your head..
For example, Brown Eye Girl is 150.. so to lock it into memory, think of a meaningful yet nutty image;
- think of a girl with 'one' brown eye and the other covered with a patch - except instead of a patch it's a '50' cent piece.. so '150'. If you haven't heard of this technique it seems whacked but it really does work.
It's kind of like transcribing or writing out drum parts.. once you think about it and write it down it's committed to memory.. it assumes you have a good tape recorder in your head to recall popular songs (which I do).
So conceivably if you carried this technique through, you could memorize hundreds of meters.. and then get on the letterman show for the segment 'Stupid Human Tricks' Lol!
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