[Sing4me88]

This has always baffled me, especially as I try to progress beyond being a lyricist by experimenting with toplining, laying down bass lines etc in a DAW. How do you folks decide how fast or slow the song will e? Is there a 'correct'way? Usually I start by having a drum beat (fairly basic kick on 1 &3 and snare on 2 & 4) and decide if it sounds fast enough and then adjust from there. 100 BPM seems to be the minimum for radio friendly pop (there are,of course, exceptions like Chained to the Rhythm and Love Me like You DO).

[diademgrove]

I don't think there is a correct way it depends on the mood you are going for. Take the Hendrix version of Hey Joe which is, I would say the most recognised cover of the song.

The Leaves version which was a minor hit before Hendrix is much faster.

Whilst Hendrix got his arrangement from Tim Rose.

As you can hear both versions are valid in their own way.

I don't think this will be of much help though.

Keith

[PaulyX]

I'm feeling my way into this as well, but my current method here is to write the basic lyrics, programme some MIDI-friendly stuff you can change the tempo of in your DAW (percussion and bass etc) then adjust the temp to see what speed I can comfortably say the words at.

[Skub]

My method of writing always used to be on guitar, so the song was played many times and altered until I got what I aimed for. The bpm also solidifies around this time too, so when I take the song to the daw, I have a fair idea of what pace I like.
Writing in a daw from scratch is a more seat of the pants thing.

[Boydie]

It depends on the mood, vibe etc. but there are some interesting observations about BPM

I agree that for radio play 100bpm is a good minimum - there are exceptions but this is a good rule of thumb to start with

One school of thought is that the general BPM of popular songs are related to the era via heart rate...

E.g. When "discotheques" emerged songwriters wanted to match the heart rate of someone in an excited state, which is around 120bpm - so this is always a good starting point for an "up beat" song

When the acid house drug culture swept the U.K. BPMs started increasing to match the increased heart rates, which then kicked on again with the rave culture, where jungle music often went as fast as 150-200bpm

Things started to calm down again where 120bpm was the magic number but in the last 10 years the general BPM of chart music has been creeping up again so 128 - 150 BPM is quite common

The thinking is that CAFFINE is increasing the "excited state" BPM - e.g. The emergence of STARBUCKS, COSTA and energy drinks, such as vodka & red bull in the clubs


Don't forget that there are other tricks to make a slower BPM sound and "feel" faster

Bruno Mar's "When I Was Your Man" is a great example of a slow (73bpm) feeling faster due to how the piano is played. Adele uses the same approach in some of her ballads to make them feel faster than they are