How good does my tempo have to be?

[jmhudak17]

And how can I make it better? I feel like I speed up and slow down at points during the song; and as a drummer it seems really obvious to me in recordings. How much variation is acceptable, and what can I do to get better? I usually practice by playing along to real songs with my headphones in.

[larryace]

Ah Tempo, one of my most important areas of focus. It really can make or break the feel of the song.
I divide it into 2 parts.
Meter, which is the ability to play steady and consistant 1/4 note pules, (in 4/4 time)without fluctuation for long periods of time, through fills, rests, bridges, verses and choruses, and other transitions. Each 1/4 note pulse has the exact same amount of space between it and the next 1/4 note pulse and the next pulse, so on and so on...like a clock ticking

and

tempo, which is the speed of the song.
You can have good meter, but a flawed sense of tempo and the song will sound consistant, just too fast (or slow) and ruin the feel.

You can have good tempo, and bad meter where the song is played at the right speed, but fluctuates from verse to chorus, chorus to bridge etc.

Of course the goal is to have rock solid meter AND and a mastery of the proper tempo. Developing this is a personal thing. Metronome work is essential to show you exactly what good meter sounds like. Tempo is more of a challenge. Naturally knowing just the right speed to play a song is a very high skill in my book. You can always "cheat" and use a metronome to count songs off, nothing wrong with that, but I want to be able to do without. I want to be able to be a human metronome/great tempo machine.

[brownie1969]

Zero...the real answer is, "zero varience" from the intended tempo. Anything else is unacceptable..... your the time-keeper kiddo, the spine supporting EVERYTHING... don't let anyone spoon-feed you a different answer....folks, there is enough slacking going on in the world....but when a drummer can't keep tempo/time, but wants to know what the,"acceptable limits of missing time", well, none of us should coddle the poor guy....its our job as purists of the, "art" of drumming, to help people understand the.... art of keeping time, in the context of making music....THATS THE DEFINITION OF DRUMMING. FIND YOUR INTERNAL CLOCK, TEMPO IS EVERYTHING thats the only real answer to your question.

[ace76543]

THATS THE DEFINITION OF DRUMMING.

Couldn't have said it better myself. If you aren't working on keeping your tempo steady (with a metronome) there's no point in practicing anything else. You can have the nicest licks in the world, but if your tempo is off, there's absolutely no point in playing at all

[jmhudak17]

I made a topic with a short video with me playing so everyone can check my tempo and tell me how much I need to work on it: http://drummerworld.com/forums/showthread.php?t=52719

[Gunnarsen]

if you can't feel it yourself you have to practice hearing and feeling the pulse!

[Dedworx]

And how can I make it better? I feel like I speed up and slow down at points during the song; and as a drummer it seems really obvious to me in recordings. How much variation is acceptable, and what can I do to get better? I usually practice by playing along to real songs with my headphones in.

how good does your time have to be? i would say to a point where you know where the original tempo is and can feel it, and then play as close as you can to right on it. or play on top of the beat, or behind the beat depending on the situation without losing your refference point(dragging or pushing the tune too much one way).

in terms of how close to perfect i would say you do have some slight wiggle room but only so much as its not noticeable.

for me, playing with a click has been the most effective way to improve what i bring to the time. yes you end up learning how the musicians you play with feel things and adapt, but when it comes to yourself, playing along to songs is great. great fun and great to improve your feel, but i think time with the click on your own is the best way for your time keeping.

some suggestions on using a click:
- improvising with a click going. a different tempo everyday, from 35bpm to 100bpm ,or higher up if you are comfortable. with the click on quarter notes you can then fill each bar with however few or many notes you wish(32nd notes or just quarter notes, or even just a few accurately placed notes per bar). doing both is useful. keeping a journal of what tempo you used and generalised notes like "played in a swing feel" or "up tempo rock" ect can help you monitor the range of tempos you used and the ideas you played around with.

- one thing i still do is when learning material from a book i usually learn whatever it is, then play it from 40 bpm up to 100bpm(depending on the complexity and how fast i can play it, it could end up stopping way before i reach 100bpm.) i usually go up by 10 bpm intervals, but if you're a newer drummer you could always start with using 4 or 5 bpm intervals.- i use the 10 bpm for things that are easier to get, and 4 bpm for things that are challenging that i really want to internalise.

if you spend a few minutes at each tempo marking and really listen to how your playing sits with the click, you'll improve your internal clock and then take that feeling to the stage, where you hear each bar of music and how your notes then fit into that space.

as in, when someone counts of a tune, once the count is over you can feel the time even before playing, the metronome used to do that for you. then its up to you to play your notes within that.

[GRUNTERSDAD]

There would be no need to count off a song if you weren't going to play at that beat or tempo. some songs have fluctuations in them but all in all your job is to keep the time of the song and variation is not part of the job.

[mrchattr]

I both agree and disagree with the answers in this thread. There are certain times when some tempo variation is ok...some jam band type songs, some jazz, etc. There are actually a lot of styles where some variation in songs is perfectly acceptable. Some of the greatest drummers out there had plenty of tempo variation, but it fit the style...the first name that comes to mind is John Bonham. There is a thread on here about what artists use click tracks where I posted a link to an article that examined tempo variations on various recorded songs to determine whether or not the drummer used a click track. Bonham's tempo was all over the place in the studio recording they examined.

With that said, some styles, such as pop, require a real adherence to tempo. I think it needs to be something that you learn to turn on and off. I can stay steady, and practice with a metronome to keep that skill. At the same time, if I feel like a jam in a song needs to be pushed, or laid back a little, or whatever, I will do it. When I work with certain artists, I know there will never be any variation. I'm basically a more-interesting-click-track. Other artists, I'm willing to drop a ton of variation in order to go with the flow of the music.

In the end, my point is that you need perfect tempo, or as close to it as you can get...but musicality can, at times, dictate that we don't stay click-perfect, without it being lazy or a derelection of duty..

[flowingwave]

I think small tempo variations within large time periods (for example 2bpm within 1 minute) are fine even if you are aiming on constant timing.

I developed an application that keeps track of your time. I think it is best to practise time keeping. Actually, I think playing along some songs leads to loose timing because you focus to much on playing to the music instead of leading the timing.