Sunday, February 19, 2012

TEMPO -- Odd or Even Number?

The previous music hint recommended using an ODD tempo number, such as
113 bpm (beats per minute)
during the draft stage of your music creation, and an EVEN tempo (114 bpm) after you have decided the music's most effective speed / tempo.

Have you ever wondered why most music has an even-numbered tempo? The answer goes back to the "old" days, long before drum machines and fantastic music creation tools like keyboards and controllers and music software programs like GarageBand or ProTools or ProLogic or....

Musicians used to need an actual mechanical METRONOME to ensure their time was steady on the beat. And the "hand" of the metronome had notches to mark the tempo, with tiny spaces between numbers at the tip where the pendulum movement would be moving SLOW, and increasingly larger spaces marked on the pendulum as the weight piece was moved downward on its arm.

For easier reading with a wider spread of tempo ranges, metronomes used even numbers. THUS, much music today is written the same, with an even TEMPO number, even though our music tools now can easily handle 100+ "notches" upward as we increase tempo bit by bit. Today's music tools have another advantage over the old fashioned tick-tick-tick-ticK-tiCK-tICK-TICKING Driving-Us-Crazy ticking metronomes....

No longer do we have to resist the urge to throw the thing across the room after repeated failures preparing for our music teacher's slowly ticking lesson time....
Much Joy (and PEACE!) in music memories and growing for you!
©2012 DianaDee Osborne, all rights reserved

Saturday, February 18, 2012

Music Sheets: Knowing Your Tempo

After you have created your music project, whether in GarageBand or another program, you might choose a music format that was NOT built from that project's software. For example, the
described at www.DianaDeeOsborneSongs.com Resources tab for Music Method
tells you how to easily put your music into a written form for yourself and other musicians without the "foreign language" of symbols like ♬ or ♮ or ♭ or ♪ .

How do you ensure your music sheet has the correct music tempo for that project?
Try this trick that works well: In your program -- such as GarageBand -- use an odd-number tempo while you are still in draft stage, and are not yet quite settled on how fast you want your music to go. On your music sheet, include information such as TEMPO: 113 bpm (odd number).
After you decide what tempo you want -- because a difference even of only 8 beats per minute can turn a dragging piece into a more popping one --
1. Ensure that the GarageBand/program tempo is an EVEN number, and
2. Mark the music sheet to match, such as TEMPO: 114 bpm
3. Make the font for the music sheet's number BOLD.
Afterwards, you will always know when looking at your music sheet that you have verified the tempo and do not need to return to the program to ensure your sheet is correct.

Much joy in Music Writing to you! Creating something that has never before existed in the universe.... something uniquely out of YOUR mind only, that no one else would have thought of in the exact creative form you did..... music is such a joy! And remember --
YOUR music is NEVER wrong!
If you have clashing notes (as I OFTEN do in my 200+ songs, see DianaDeeOsborneSongs.com), they are still right if YOU say so! That's your creative mind at work!
©2012 DianaDee Osborne, all rights reserved