Ploddings

What Is Tempo?

The tempo of a song measures how fast the music is played.

How Is Tempo Measured?

As "pounds" measure weight, "beats per minute" (abbreviated as "bpm") measures musical tempo.

Ever been annoyed by a clock ticking at night? Take a guess — what's the "beats per minute" of a clock?

The answer? It's 60bpm!

As you can imagine, a song with a tempo of 350 bpm is blazingly quick, while a song with a tempo of 30 bpm is quite relaxed.

How Can You Practice Good Tempo?

Ask most professional musicians, and they'll probably tell you that playing with steady and consistent tempo (or "good time") is more important than hitting every note. That old saying of, "never missing a beat," rings true.

Is playing with good tempo something you can practice? Yup - here are a few ways you can practice good tempo:

• Metronomes: download a metronome app, and play along with that steady click
• Play through mistakes: sometimes it helps to pretend you're in a "game situation" and play through any mistakes, rather than hesitating or pausing
• Start slow, but in time: if you're playing a new (or challenging) piece of music, bite off only what you can chew (in terms of tempo). In-time, you can slowly "turn up the heat" from there