Feeling the Tempo
What's in the course
24 lessons (1h 31m) · 1 free
Lesson transcript
Discussing Tempo in Live Music
It's a good song, as well, to discuss tempo. This song's tempo is a very interesting subject for me, particularly because I use a loop pedal.
The Importance of Tempo
- When I'm looping live, nothing is saved; nothing's on a card. It's all completely live.
- So when I'm playing live, I have to nail the right tempo. If I don't nail the right tempo, that's it for the rest of the song, I'm a slave to whatever I've put into the loop pedal.
Over the years of playing, I've become very attuned to really feeling where the tempo should be.
Adapting to the Moment
To the point where I'll stop:
- If I'm playing a song live and it feels wrong, I'll stop.
- Then I play it again.
I swear, everyone just thinks, "She has just played exactly the same thing." But I know that it's like a few BPM, more or less, that really makes a difference to the space I have to deliver the rhythm in the right way.
My drummer Cat, who is in the band that we were just tearing wax, would always kind of secretly pat me on the back because I'd be hitting exactly the same BPM that she could see on her metronome.
Muscle Memory and Audience Connection
It's almost like muscle memory as well, making sure your tunes are hitting that great tempo.
- Moreover, where you're playing and who you're playing for will change that, too. So, you need to read the room as well.
I recently did a version of this song acoustically, which felt pretty crazy. It felt weird, really weird, to do it, but someone asked for it, and I was like, "Okay, let's do it."
Exploring Different Interpretations
- It was a really kind of lullaby, much slower.
"Face is a map of the world, is a map of the world you can see. She's a beautiful girl, she's a beautiful girl."
Everything around there is silver pool light, people surrounding to feel the benefit of it.
Suddenly, you're singing in a totally different way. Your tempo's changed; your nuance has changed in how you're singing the lyrics.
The Value of Variation
I think that's actually a really interesting exercise with your songs: to play them in different ways.
- It can really teach you about other ways of performing.
- Even if you're playing it in the original way, there might be bits that you prefer.
Also, if you're gigging all the time and playing the same songs, it's really nice to find just little tweaks that keep you interested in playing the same thing over and over again.
But I have to say, I feel very lucky because that is a very fun song to play over and over and over again.
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Photo credit: Tom Oxley
Since scoring a worldwide smash with her debut album 'Eye To The Telescope' in 2004, which went on to sell over 5 million copies, KT Tunstall has remained at the forefront of UK singer-songwriter talent.
KT followed up that early success with the albums 'Drastic Fantastic', 'Tiger Suit' and 'Invisible Empire // Crescent Moon' in 2007, 2010 and 2013 respectively, keeping the platinum sales rolling and cementing the Scottish singer-songwriter's reputation as a major recording talent, as well as a mesmerising live artist.
2012 and the years that followed saw a seismic shift in outlook - the loss of her father, a divorce, and a relocation to Venice Beach, California.
After a period of healing, soul-searching, and a change of scenery, 2016 hailed the arrival of the first of a trilogy of KT Tunstall's albums, the critically acclaimed UK top 10 album 'KIN'. The trilogy evokes, separately and in sequence, spirit, body and mind. With 'KIN' being her phoenix-from-the-ashes 'spirit' album, 2018 marked the second offering of that trilogy, the 'body' album 'WAX'.
KT Tunstall has toured the world many times over. She outsold every other female artist in the UK in 2005, won the 2006 Brit Award for Best British Female Solo Artist, won the Ivor Novello Best Song award for her huge, self-penned hit 'Suddenly I See', and a Q award for Track of the Year.
She also landed a Grammy nomination for Best Female Pop Vocal Performance with 'Black Horse and the Cherry Tree' and lent her tunes to a host of movies and TV shows ('Suddenly I See' being used in the iconic opening scene of the modern classic Meryl Streep film 'The Devil Wears Prada').
The first single from her latest release, 'The River', was named one of Rolling Stone's 'Songs You Need To Know'.
The last few years have seen something of a creative rebirth for KT Tunstall. Upon relocating to the west coast of the USA, she was accepted as one of six annual fellows for the Sundance Film Institute's Composers Lab (hosted by George Lucas's Skywalker Ranch in Northern California) and has since scored music for short and feature films.
She has also been awarded the Inspirational Artist gong at the Women In Music Awards and was chosen as the first ever female Grand Marshal (following the likes of Sir Sean Connery) to lead April 2018's annual New York Tartan Week parade. In May 2018 she and Mike McCready, of legendary multi-million selling Pearl Jam, released a cover of Tom Petty's huge hit single 'I Won't Back Down' with proceeds going to Pearl Jam's Vitalogy Foundation.
In 2018, KT performed sold-out intimate headline shows across the UK and US and toured worldwide supporting acclaimed artists including Simple Minds, The Pretenders, and Barenaked Ladies.
2019 saw KT perform a large headline tour across the UK and Europe with her all-female band, playing festivals all over the UK (including a headline set at Glastonbury Festival). She toured the US & Canada, Japan, China, the Netherlands, Mexico and Brazil, as well as supporting Hall & Oates on their UK arena tour.
Touring continued for KT in early 2020 with headline shows in the US, performing with Jools Holland across Europe, and playing New York's legendary Madison Square Garden, supporting Hall & Oates.
In her Song Studies course, KT pulls back the curtain on the guitar parts and songwriting craft behind her biggest hits - a rare chance to learn how a Brit Award-winning, Grammy-nominated songwriter actually builds a song.
