Several areas of music require attention which have a degree of flexibility
and at the same time need some type of fixed parameters to fulfill their
application. One such area is 'tempo'. Choice of a good tempo can
make or break the performance of a piece of music. There are a number of
factors involved in selecting a tempo for a particular piece of music.
Consider the following items (here listed in a very general order of
importance):
- TEMPO as indicated by composer.
- Style / Character of the piece.
- Mood / desired "feeling" for the piece.
- Acoustics.
- Historical Period.
- TEMPO = Always keep a music dictionary handy and check on the
tempo indication as given by the composer.
- The style and character of the piece must be considered in order to
arrive at a sense of the tempo that best projects the piece.
- The mood and desired feeling (though related to item #2) for the
piece would deal more with the individual personal feeling for tempo
that best projects the music as compared to the academic understanding
of style and character.
- Acoustics have a bearing on tempo choice as can be noted by a "dry"
acoustic situation may need a slight forward motion in tempo to project
a good feeling as compared to a "live" acoustic situation which may
sound well with a lesser tempo (pace).
- An example of being aware of historical periods is the fact that
'ADAGIO' in the 17th century denoted a distinctly less slow pace that it
did later. Having a music dictionary and using it is important.
An approach that is different but worthy of an experiment is to play a piece
faster than you think it should go and also play slower than it should go.
The idea being 'know what is to fast, know what is too slow, and you should know
what is correct'.
Give most attention to the sense, feel, and projection of the phrase unit.
Too small a unit of thought such as the metre/time signature or a measure length
is not enough to aid the determination of a good tempo. Mozart said that
nothing seemed to him so important as the right choice of tempo.
