Saxophone beginners Beats Per Minute

[Vetinari]

bpm for our little group's music says no faster than Graham can play. 😛

 

[6441]

I have an app on my Android phone, I'm sure there's an iOS equivalent, to tap a few bars of a song while listening and it measures the tempo. Very handy for starting a backing track from scratch or with BiaB or iReal Pro. You can often find performances of classical pieces on YouTube. There's no guarantee the conductor's andante is the same as someone who lived 100 or more years ago. 🙂

 

[Pete Effamy]

I have an app on my Android phone, I'm sure there's an iOS equivalent, to tap a few bars of a song while listening and it measures the tempo. Very handy for starting a backing track from scratch or with BiaB or iReal Pro. You can often find performances of classical pieces on YouTube. There's no guarantee the conductor's andante is the same as someone who lived 100 or more years ago. 🙂

No, and neither does every performance of a piece need to comply to an exact bpm. Interpretation has to include bpm otherwise classical music is nailing itself to the wall. I’m sure that most composers would rather hear different ideas on performance. Indeed, there have been many a time when a composer has said that a certain soloist/rendition had gone beyond their own vision. And why wouldn’t it, they are not masters of each and every instrument that they write for.
So long as the significant markings/directions (that make a difference) are adhered to then there is room to interpret beyond these. For example, changing a tutti staccato passage to legato is re-writing yet changes of dynamics, some articulations and tempii in places is interpretation.
The danger in being too exacting is the equivalent of a playwright prescribing the tone of voice to be used by the actor along with all other directions.

 

[6441]

neither does every performance of a piece need to comply to an exact bpm

Oh, the best original versions are interpretations and the tempo is up to the artist, but if you want to do something that corresponds to the arrangement you heard and liked, matching the tempo is handy. You can pretty much do this in your head or even counting a few beats and doing the math, but the app, which I think are often free, just does it in one listen.

 

[nigeld]

I have an app on my Android phone, I'm sure there's an iOS equivalent, to tap a few bars of a song while listening and it measures the tempo.

The TapThatTempo app on the iPhone does this.

 

[Pete Effamy]

Oh, the best original versions are interpretations and the tempo is up to the artist, but if you want to do something that corresponds to the arrangement you heard and liked, matching the tempo is handy. You can pretty much do this in your head or even counting a few beats and doing the math, but the app, which I think are often free, just does it in one listen.

Yes I have a couple metronomes that have that feature and it’s really handy.

 

[GCinCT]

I have the Tonal Energy Tuner. It has a metronome with the tap feature.

 

[6441]

I have the Tonal Energy Tuner. It has a metronome with the tap feature.

I keep forgetting that that thing is the Swiss Knife of tuner apps!

 

[Tenor Viol]

bpm for our little group's music says no faster than Graham can play. 😛

Yeah, but I gave you all a big push last month...

 

[s.mundi]

When my little purple flower was young, we spent a lot of time at the park. I would pick her up and allow her to grab the first monkey bar (she was tiny). She would cross the monkey bars and back twice without stopping. When she was finished, I caught her. After the monkey bars, she was exhausted and would just lay in the dirt. She said, "Daddy, my heart is BEEPING fast."
BPM: BEEPS PER MINUTE

 

[Colin the Bear]

A metronome with a tap feature. Hot and cool no doubt. 😉

 

[Jazzaferri]

I and both my metronomes put allegro 110 to 130 but we are all North American

 

[Tenor Viol]

Tempo markings such as 'allegro' are indicative, context sensitive, subjective, and depends on the venue's acoustics too.

There's an a cappella choral piece I have sung numerous times by Bruckner. It should be fairly slow at about crotchet = 54 (so a slow andante). However, if you perform it in a very dry acoustic (one local church is notorious for that) you have to up the tempo quite a bit otherwise it just dies and is very difficult to sing (because there's no support from reverb)

 

[aldevis]

Tempo markings such as 'allegro' are indicative, context sensitive, subjective, and depends on the venue's acoustics too.

It's a mood, not a number of beats for minute