Forum - Banjo Ben Clark

How to understand the tempo setting in TefView

Anyone know the “how to” on the tempo setting in the TefView application?

I don’t quite understand the question. Do you want to know how to set the tempo in TefView?

Click on the speaker icon and then write the tempo (or use the arrows) in the box.

Thx bluenote23 …
I know how to set the tempo … “how to” value that setting in regards to “beats per minute/bpm”.
It doesn’t seem to correlate directly to bpm. Is a tempo setting of 160 in TefView equal to 160 bpm or is it half … 80 bpm … which seems to make sense. I can play with practice material when I set them to 160 … but I don’t think I can play 160 bpm … seems way too fast.

Each beat of the metronome corresponds to a quarter note.

However, that’s neither here nor there really. Bluegrass tunes are really fast so tempos of 250 BPM are not unusual. You are probably playing at half speed so your 120 BPM is really 60 BPM in TefView.

But don’t worry about numbers. TefView is great because you can set the tempo as slow as you yourself are able to play so you can hear how the tune will sound at YOUR speed. The more you practice a song, the faster it will get. To play at 250 BPM, you have to be able to play without thinking. Earl Scruggs (I think) said that you had to play a song 1000 times to get it so that’s a lot of repetition.

Just to further clarify:
Most notes of songs, especially the rolling parts, are eighth notes (notes with one tail). So for each tick of a metronome you play two of these notes.

I just read your second post again and I misunderstood your question, I think. You are saying that the setting in TefView seems too slow?

The tempo in TefView should corresponds to BPM, beats per minute. Each beat is a quarter note so depending on the value of the written notes, a given tempo could sound slow or fast.

At 160 BPM, eighth note rolls will be fairly fast so if you can keep that pace, you’re doing pretty good.

What song are you playing?

Thx again bluenote23 …

I chatted with the folks from TefView and got my answer. I appreciate your effort.

Could you post their answer? It might enlighten all here . thank you .

I can’t “post” the reply other than to say that the tech support person directed me to the help feature and walked me through the three help replies. I think my question had something to do with how the software uses pick syncopation within the tempo setting. Has to do with 1/8 notes, 1/4 notes … et al . It seemed like the answer at the time.
After that I set my metronome device with the temp setting and figured it was a 2 to 1 ratio.