the Tempo of a song...

Grey8 · #1 08-29-2008, 11:21 AM

hi everyone.
lately ive been wanting to learn as much as i can about music theory, ive asked my teacher to teach me some music theory basics.
i do have a question about tempo, how can i know in what tempo a song is based... how do i know its 3/4, 5/4 or 4/4, or the difference between 8/4 and 4/4? is there an easy method to know this? any instructional video on youtube or so?

thanks in advance!

ljguitar · #2 08-29-2008, 12:00 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grey8

hi everyone.
lately ive been wanting to learn as much as i can about music theory, ive asked my teacher to teach me some music theory basics.
i do have a question about tempo, how can i know in what tempo a song is based... how do i know its 3/4, 5/4 or 4/4, or the difference between 8/4 and 4/4? is there an easy method to know this? any instructional video on youtube or so?

Hi Grey...
You are referring to time signatures, not tempo. And yes, a basic theory class would teach you about both, and how they interact. Don't know about YouTube - just type ''music lessons'' ''time signatures'' in the search tool and see what pops up...that's your homework assignment.

Tempo is how fast the music is played - usually expressed in beats per minute. Time signatures specify how many beats are in each measure, and which value of note gets one beat.

Most music is written with measures being sub-divided into beats which are then subdivided into 2-4-8-16 equal parts...thus whole note, half note, quarter note, eighth note and sixteenth note (all the way out to 128th note which I actually saw in a score once).

We teach children and beginning to count the 16th notes equally like this:
One-ee-and-uh, Two-ee-and-uh, Three-ee-and-uh, Four-ee-and-uh with the numbers falling on the beats. Try saying this out loud evenly.

You can often determine whether a song is in ''2'' or ''4'' by the feel of the groove and the tempo. Faster paced songs are more often in 2/4 than 4/4 though not always discernable (nor that critical).

Some time signatures like 12/4 or 12/8 are often 4-groups-of-3s instead of 4/4. A song in 12/8 or 12/4 is probably 4/4 with the beats being subdivided into three equal parts instead of 4s.

Triplets are pronounced like this:
One-and-uh, Two-and-uh, Three-and-uh, Four-and-uh with the accent coming on the beat.

Likewise, 6/8 is probably 2/4 subdivided by triplets (three equal sub-parts) instead of eighth notes (four equal sub-parts).

If this is too technical to understand intuitively, then you need to find some teaching help. If you were here, we'd spend 10 minutes with my Boss metronome and you'd understand it...

Malcolm · #3 08-29-2008, 08:28 PM

Good reply on time signatures.

Here is something that may help with music theory.

http://www.ibreathemusic.com/forums/...ad.php?t=11975

Good luck.

cotten · #4 08-29-2008, 10:43 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ljguitar

...Tempo is how fast the music is played - usually expressed in beats per minute...

Let me expand this a bit, though I think LJ has already clearly addressed your actual question. The "tempo" of music is the speed of the beats, regardless of how they are grouped by a time signature.

For instance, if a piece of music says that a quarter note equals sixty, that's one quarter note per second. You can come pretty close to it by reading aloud, "one thousand and one, one thousand and two, one thousand and three..." at a normal speaking spead. If the quarter note equals one hundred and twenty, that's twice as fast.

cotten

Bob1131 · #5 08-30-2008, 07:43 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by cotten

.." at a normal speaking spead. cotten

That depends on where you're from...some folks in Boston speak at 120 while down in some parts of Alabama they speak at 30, and in California they use too many holds and rests to be able to get a good count!

Side note: 4/4 can be played in "cut time" denoted by a "C" instead of 4/4 in the signature, and has the effect of making the tempo twice as fast by cutting the signature to 2/2. Technically, each written half note gets played as a quarter note, a quarter note then gets played as an eighth, an eighth gets played as a sixteenth, and so on.

Bill Cory · #6 08-30-2008, 07:47 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ljguitar

If this is too technical to understand intuitively, then you need to find some teaching help. If you were here, we'd spend 10 minutes with my Boss metronome and you'd understand it...

Larry -- why don't you do a YouTube video on some things, this included?

Grey8 · #7 08-30-2008, 02:59 PM

thanks to everyone for your responses.
ive found this music teacher who has some very useful videos on youtube.
i think he's great. he has about 8 introductory lessons to music theory, hes really easy to follow and to me has a great gift of teaching.

his name is Mr.Gilliard

check him out.
http://www.youtube.com/user/MrGilliardMusic

mcphersonnut · #8 08-30-2008, 03:03 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Malcolm

Good reply on time signatures.

Here is something that may help with music theory.

http://www.ibreathemusic.com/forums/...ad.php?t=11975

Good luck.

Nice...........

taylormadeguita · #9 08-30-2008, 05:10 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Grey8

hi everyone.
lately ive been wanting to learn as much as i can about music theory, ive asked my teacher to teach me some music theory basics.
i do have a question about tempo, how can i know in what tempo a song is based... how do i know its 3/4, 5/4 or 4/4, or the difference between 8/4 and 4/4? is there an easy method to know this? any instructional video on youtube or so?

thanks in advance!

Hi grey,

As previously stated by other posts, Tempo is different to the time signature of a song. Tempo is normally in "Beats per minute", it is the speed at which the song is played.and getting yourself a decent metronome with sort that out pretty quickly!! Time signatures tell us what type of beat is played in what amount. For instance a 4/4 time signature tells us:

4 Amount of beats in bar
/
4 Type of beat. In this case "crotchets" (Quarter beats)

Per bar of music.

The top number always means the amount of the particular beat in the bar, the lower number shows the type of beat: A Crotchet, (1/4 beat), A Quaver (1/8 beat), etc, etc.

Yes look on any decent music theory site, I will post details of mine soon!!

Alan LLCM (TD).

Peace to you all!!

Grey8 · #10 09-02-2008, 09:57 AM

Ok, so ive got an example here.
I uploaded a song to youtube.
Its a christian Christmas song in spanish, kinda with a jazzy arrangemente.
It has been a little difficult to find out what is the time signature, though, ive noticed that it has 2 different time signatures during the song, correct me if im wrong.
I think there is one time signature in the verse (4/4) and a different one in the instrumental parts (3/4)... or not?

Here it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=COAoC_5SW7M