[Bryson]

slinkp wrote:
On May 7, 4:13 pm, Laurence wrote:
So take a Beatles song where you suspect this is happening, see what
they do. There are tools in the good DAW programs that make this easy.

This can be a fun experiment when you're listening to something that
has odd things going on with tempo.
I did it with Led Zeppelin's "Out on the Tiles" several years ago.
That song sounds like crap if you don't slow certain parts down by a
good 10% or so.
Aside from the dramatic obvious slowdowns, it was kind of fun to see
the tempo drifting slightly throughout the song.

I wish people still played like that, but hardly anybody knows how
anymore.

Regarding the Beatles, one early example that comes to mind is "Hold
Me TIght".
You can feel it slowing down quite a bit as they approach the "Don't
know what it means to hold you tight" section,
then it picks up again for "It feels so right".
Again, I'd argue the song would be a lot less effective without the
tempo changes.

Or just count off (say) 8 bars against a stopwatch.

This will give you permission to vary tempo, if you need it. Then
find out where, and how much YOUR song needs to vary. If there MUST
be a click track (why?) it should describe what you and/or the other
performers naturally do, not command it.

Agreed!

Some tempo changes in Beatles (and others) tunes were also due to
editing different takes together. I'm not saying that "It feels so
right" is an edit... might be though. BTW... though not one of their
big hits, Hold Me Tight is one of my fave early Beatles numbers.