Playing tempos too fast- a young people thing?

[ido1957]

Another "trick" I've used for getting the right tempo in the heat of battle. Before counting off, sing the hook in your head. One is the loneliest number, one is the lonliest... 1, 2, 3, 4... If you just think of the intro, you really don't have a good gauge as to the tempo requirement of a song. The hook is the key to the tempo. A very good drummer I work with a lot does this if he has doubts. You see him mentally singing the chorus, he looks up at the singer/songwriter while clicking his sticks and says ,"About here?" All while the crowd waits. The singer nods and we're off. It takes all of 5 seconds.

 

 

That's a cool trick - I should try that some time....

 

The drummer doing it is very effective.....

[MDLMUSIC]

I once showed up a drummer onstage, during that song. "Mustang Sally - think you better slow your Mustang down ... {I'm already totally annoyed with too-fast disco-sounding beat drummer is playing} I said hey there, drummer - think you better slow that tempo down, now... You better put on the brakes and lay back... Cuz your hi-hat pattern makes this sound like a disco song."

 

 

I did a similar thing at a jam session a few months back. We had a guest drummer sitting in and I asked if he could play a train beat so I could sing Johnny Cash's "Folsom Prison Blues". He assured me he was the King of the Train Beat, so I played the signature intro lick at the normal speed, but when the drummer came in he had kicked it up twice as fast. I could hardly get the lyrics out, but when I did, I sang, "I hear that train a coming, it's rolling round the bend, now it's rolled right off the tracks, and is turning end over end..."

 

I then stopped the song and restarted it after telling the drummer that he needed to slow down a tad.

 

The audience loved it.