Timothy's Blog

Timothy's blog on dulcimers, music, nature and life!
JUN
18

Three kinds of tempo flow

Three kinds of tempo flow

The Italian word “tempo” means “time” --- music moving through time at a certain speed, as we generally think of it.  But it also involves how we progress through time.  Offhand, I can immediately think of three different ways in which the tempo moves.  Let’s line them out:

1)    Steadily:  Like a metronome that ticks away every beat, or, with the human element, moving along pretty nearly like a metronome but with more life to it --- this is the most common tempo motion.  In fact, Pop music recordings often utilize a studio “click track” metronome that serves as a reference during the recording process so all the instruments and voices move along together and the song can be set up to be good for dancing. Then in the final mixdown the metronome track is removed.  We all need to be able to keep this kind of flow (click track or not) and to keep it consistent, no matter what genre of music we play!  Old-Time and Bluegrass music, for example, tend to keep this consistent rhythm.  It's the easiest "groove" for an ensemble's members to keep their timing precise.

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APR
19

The scale, the melody, the chords, and time!

The scale, the melody, the chords, and time!

Often people think of music design as a mysterious, arcane art that can only be done by gifted geniuses who just have a special knack --- or, alternatively, that new music (improvisation or composition) can be made only by highly trained technical experts.  Not really!  There are only a few basic concepts that make it all come together, and here's what I've seen as a lifelong improviser:

1) Everything in normal "tonal" music is built out of a diatonic (do-re-mi) scale: seven scale steps in an octave, and nothing more.  In elementary school music or elsewhere I hope you've gotten the chance to hear that that scale is a "whole step, whole step, half step, whole step, whole step, whole step, half step," easily seen in the key of C on the piano.

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