As a bassist, producer, and songwriting coach and teacher I’ve listened closely to thousands of songs. Then there are the hundreds of my own songs that I’ve worked on.

Generally speaking, I try not to generalize… but there are certain things that do come up repeatedly when songwriters, including me, perform or present recordings of their songs.

One of the most common – and it’s very, very common – is that many of us tend to play or record our songs at a tempo that is too slow.

(I’m writing here about the overall tempo of a song; not speeding up or slowing down within it.)

I think there’s a tendency to want to stretch things out a bit to emphasize the song’s emotion, maybe to draw attention to the words or to the melody, so listeners don’t miss it.. Maybe lengthening the big moments of a song out will give it more impact…?

In my experience, the opposite is more often true. Ponderousness doesn’t add to impact. One of the things a song needs most (even a ballad) is momentum, drive. A too-slow tempo can drag the momentum down.

Is this always true? Of course not. Finding the ‘right’ tempo will always be subjective. (Recently a friend of mine who worked with The BeeGees told me of being at a recording session where the Gibb brothers argued at length about the effect of a tempo difference of one beat per minute on a song they were working on.)

It’s also true that getting nervous about a song’s impact can lead in the other direction – playing it too fast and diffusing its power that way. This is just as bad.

But far more common is songs played too slow. Here’s my suggestion. Unless your song is just naturally a fast song (in which case you might want to experiment with slowing it down) try speeding up your song just a little. Play it for more than a minute or so at the new, faster tempo – give yourself a chance to get used to it.

If the new tempo feels OK, try pushing it up another bpm or two. Repeat this process until it clearly feels wrong – too rushed; maybe the lyrics are now too jammed together or the emotion feels wrong. At that point lower the tempo back down; just a bit.

You’re probably now getting closer to something that’s ‘right’ for your version of the song. And it’s likely quicker than where you started. You can continue to fiddle with the tempo but you will have shaken out whatever sluggishness (if any) the tempo was adding.

When I do this I sometimes end up back at the original tempo. But more often I arrive at a brighter one that’s better for the song.

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