Record a rehearsal.
Then check the tempo at the start
and the tempo at the end.
It is not the same number.
You were four beats a minute faster
by the final chorus,
and while it was happening
you felt nothing at all.
Everybody does this.
Adrenaline, volume, enthusiasm,
a drummer chasing a singer
who is chasing the drummer.
Speed feels like energy from the inside.
From the outside
it sounds like panic.
The reverse is just as common.
The slow song gets slower
every time you play it,
until it stops moving at all.
Here is the uncomfortable part.
You cannot hear your own tempo
while you are playing,
because you are inside it.
There is no reference.
Nothing in that room is holding still.
So the cure has to come
from outside you.
A click.
A recording.
A phone on a chair.
Musicians resist the click
because it sounds mechanical,
and it does, for a week,
and then you understand
that the click was not
what made you stiff.
You were discovering
how much you had been leaning
on speeding up
to manufacture excitement.
That is worth knowing.
Excitement built out of tempo
is the cheapest kind
and the first to collapse.
So do the boring work.
Write the tempo down
for every song you play.
Not fast.
Not medium.
A number.
Count it in from that number
every time,
including in rehearsal
when nobody is watching.
Then listen back
and find out whether you held it.
You will discover something else
while you are in there.
The tempo you rehearsed
is often not the right one.
Four beats slower
and the groove opens up.
Four faster
and the chorus stops dragging.
You never found it
because nothing ever held still
long enough to compare.
Feel is real.
Pushing and pulling on purpose
is most of what makes a band
sound alive.
But on purpose is the whole phrase.
Drift is not feel.
Drift is nobody
keeping the time.
– Serguey Asael Shinder
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