Re: How do you tell tempo for indications in English

[Patrick Horgan]

On 02/02/2011 03:30 AM, Ralph Palmer wrote:
> On Tue, Feb 1, 2011 at 11:05 PM, Patrick Horgan <address@hidden 
> <mailto:address@hidden>> wrote:
>
>     I'm setting some of O'Neill's Irish tunes, and the tempo
>     indications are (a selection):
>
>     Animated, Boldly, Cheerful, Cheerfully, Gaily, Gracefully, Moderate,
>     Plaintive, Plaintively, Playful, Playfully, Rather slow, Slow,
>     Slow and distinctly, Slow and mournful, Slow and tenderly,
>     Slow and with feeling, Slow with expression, Slow and feeling,
>     Spirited, Tenderly, Very slow, With animation, With expression,
>     With feeling, With spirit
>
>     What do you do with that?  I can find tables of usual tempo ranges
>     for italian tempo indications, but I have no idea what to do with
>     these.  I'd like them to be authentic, in that the midi file would
>     be about as fast as the tune would usually be played in an Irish
>     pub.  Does anyone have any ideas?
>
>     Patrick
>
>
> Greetings, Patrick -
>
> The tempo indications are just what they say. There's a lot of 
> variation in tempo for the same tune at various sessions.This may not 
> be a lot of help, but I would suggest three possibilities: 1) play the 
> midi at a default or provisional tempo, decide whether it sounds right 
> to you, then modify the tempo accordingly;
But I don't know the repertoire so I don't know what sounds right.
> 2) get a metronome with a beat input button, play or hum the tune the 
> way you think it should go, then tap the metronome button at that pace 
> to find the tempo; or
Again, I don't know the repertoire.
> 3) find a recording or an Irish session musician who will play the 
> tune for you, and determine that tempo.
I've tried with some of that with youtube.  Still not helpful for most, 
cause I can't find them.
> No hard and fast rules, I'm afraid. I'd like to see the results when 
> you're done. Incidentally, if you didn't know, all the O'Neill's tunes 
> have been transcribed using ABC format and are freely available. Some 
> of them  may give tempos; I don't know. If you want to check them out, 
> go to
> http://trillian.mit.edu/~jc/cgi/abc/tunefind 
> <http://trillian.mit.edu/%7Ejc/cgi/abc/tunefind>
> enter the tune name, and you can check out the ABC source file, a 
> .jpg, a .png, and other formats.
Yeah, I know that site.  They mention the same problem and that most of 
the files don't have any real tempo indications so the midi files are 
often at weird speeds.
> There will be *multiple* hits for each tune. If you want the 
> O'Neill's, it will be identified by a number (I can't remember what 
> the number is) all the way to the left of the entry.
Thank you,

Patrick