How fast is fast enough?

[MarkRhodes]

I'm working on lines and choruses for the rhythm changes and wonder, "Hey, when is enough enough?" If I were in a band, I would know if I could handle things at the the needed tempo, but I'm a songwriter (-aka "loner asshole") who works alone. That's great for my playing in one sense--I have to play lines that make sense when there's no rhythm section behind me; it keeps me melodic--but in another, I may be spending too much time on things I have down well enough and not learning enough new materil.

Any thoughts?

[CC323]

I lean toward achieving complete mastery before moving on. Make vocabulary a part of you instead of BSing large quantities of it, and it will come out in your playing organically. That has worked for me so far. Good luck!

Chris

[timscarey]

I'm working on lines and choruses for the rhythm changes and wonder, "Hey, when is enough enough?" If I were in a band, I would know if I could handle things at the the needed tempo, but I'm a songwriter (-aka "loner asshole") who works alone. That's great for my playing in one sense--I have to play lines that make sense when there's no rhythm section behind me; it keeps me melodic--but in another, I may be spending too much time on things I have down well enough and not learning enough new materil.

Any thoughts?

it's never fast enough..... never.... just kidding. I beleive that is a metter of opinion and really depends on what your goals are. I never focus on speed with my students and only rarley in my own practice, unless, I know im going to be playing something at a specific tempo, in which case I practice it about 20 clicks faster than the target tempo. I find if you can play it at 180, you can play it at 160..... BPM that is.

[mr. beaumont]

i like tim's idea.

[fep]

When I practice scales or licks - I'm maxing out at 1/16th notes at 120 bpm. Triplets at 150 bpm.

It's not great but it seems okay. I don't spend much time on it, I think if I really worked on it maybe I could increase by maybe 10%. I have other things that I think are more important to work on.

When tempos get too fast, I just connect to every other beat, or every 4th beat, sort of slowing it down without slowing it down.

In blues, pop, or rock you don't run into many uptemp tunes... Jazz though, what's up with the 220 bpm songs?

[JimBobWay]

In blues, pop, or rock you don't run into many uptemp tunes... Jazz though, what's up with the 220 bpm songs?

Serious speed used to be available OTC, and many of the greats used it. On the other hand, I idolized McLaughlin, who did not use drugs, when I started playing, and I developed the ability to pick very fast. But nobody wanted to hear it (except metal shredders...and even they disliked most of the modes). Over the years I have consciously avoided playing fast, with excellent results. Most people just want to hear a nice melody, in my experience. But if you crave speed, start slow and work up to it with a metronome. Fast & sloppy has a very limited audience.

[timscarey]

Serious speed used to be available OTC, and many of the greats used it..

Ha Ha, that is halarious. Seriously though. It's waaaaayyyy easier to play fast on a saxophone or piano. guitar, bass, trombone, and even trumpet do pose quite a challenge though.

[JohnW400]

Violin.

The original shred instrument.


I alway dug Johnny Mc. But more for his unique compositions. Dance of Maya, Birds of Fire, Inner Mounting Flame.

I think he is definately one of the top 10 players in the world today.

But alas...speed isn't eveything. (with John Mc, you can hear the feeling in his music in his solos fast or not.)

Ther are still plenty of players that are not speed demons thay have plenty to "say"

Jim Hall, Pat Methaney, Bill Frissel, lots of others.


The real issue is what do YOU hear? Do you hear really fast melodies or what? If you don't hear shred then why try to emulat it? Take a tip from that Chris Stranding website and Play What You HEAR.

[princeplanet]

I wonder the same thing sometimes. Unfortunately, my nervy disposition makes me "hear" my dream improvs moving rather quickly, 8ths at 300 -320 bpm. Bird or Stitt like lines, even Oscar Peterson more so than say Pat Martino. Of course I can't play it yet, the best I'm doing is my own etudes at 280 -290. It is just so difficult to play quality lines mixing arps and lines etc at such a speed. The left hand is ok, but the right hand needs so much precision with it's control and synchronicity I'm wondering if I am just wasting my time spending hundreds of hours going from 240 to 280 bpm...

I do try to listen to slower phrasing and I do love it on other instruments, but I just like hearing the notes fly off the guitar, Wes, Farlow, Benson, Kessel, Django etc etc. These guys were certainly not mindless shredders playing modal nonsense randomly against anything at all. No sir, these guys made the changes! Didn't Farlow do a Cherokee at 400 bpm?!! Bastards....

[freddy j]

i notice you have a qoute from j pass. saw him in detroit a ways back. he played at masonic temple. when i was seated , and noticed his set up on the stage, it was a simple wooden chair, small amp, miked. end of story. when he began to play, it was amazing, an entire orchestra of sound came from his fingers, nothing was added that didn't need to be there. i heard him say ,as well as many other great players, its often what you don't play that makes all the difference. less is more. just my 2 cents worth bro.

[JohnW400]

i notice you have a qoute from j pass. saw him in detroit a ways back. he played at masonic temple. when i was seated , and noticed his set up on the stage, it was a simple wooden chair, small amp, miked. end of story. when he began to play, it was amazing, an entire orchestra of sound came from his fingers, nothing was added that didn't need to be there. i heard him say ,as well as many other great players, its often what you don't play that makes all the difference. less is more. just my 2 cents worth bro.

I agree about JOe P, but he does indeed "shred". Check out his duo w/ Nils P

[Reg]

Most gigs don't require much technical proficiency, but you do need to be able to play tunes at burnin tempo. Most medium jazz tunes are played somewhere between 160 to 200 and the up tunes 200 to 300. I think you should be able to play 16th notes at least for the medium tempo tunes and after that, it just depends which group you want to be in. I personally enjoy playing and listening to players that can burn when they want to.
At gigs I can catch ears much quicker with a little flash early. I believe it's part of my responsibility to help teach the public about jazz, I wish it was theirs. Once I have there ears I try and do my part.
Most guitar player hit tempo walls because of bad technique, both hands. Any way I'm from the school that burnin is required technique, even if you don't use it. Reg

[princeplanet]

Ha, "Spasmodic Arm Vibration"... otherwise known as "Masturbation"
Honestly, I'm equally impressed by Typing competitions, ie, it's a sport, not an art. Playing nonsense at 480 bpm (unbroken 8ths) is for teenagers to jerk off over. But show me the guy who can improvise over any progression and make the changes in style at say 320 bpm, that's the guy I admire.

[billkath]

The way I've always looked at it is-in any style of guitar playing- When you hum a guitar solo-an iconic solo-how many of those solo's were done at lightning speed? I think most people would know the guitar solos (to hum) of Hotel California, Something, Stairway to Heaven, Samba Pa Ti, Still got the Blues for you, Johnny B Goode and a 1000 others. I've yet to hear anyone-musician or not- hum one of these shredder solos.
What am I saying? A tiny bit of taste is better than a whole lot of notes-don't even bother practicing it.

[BigDaddyLoveHandles]

There's a drummer in my pod of veal-fattening-pens, er, cubicles, and he listens to heavy stuff on his headphones. He sometimes hums along and it's hilarious. It sounds like he's possessed. But even he doesn't hum the thrashing solos for very long.

[timscarey]

Just thought of a funny metaphor for playing fast. It's like walking on hot coals.... very impressive, but only if you make it to the other side.

I sometimes play bass in the house band at a local jam session. last night 6 other bass player sat in over the course of the night. they all tried to play as fast as they could during their solos and the same thing happened to all of them...

A flurry of blues scale..... stop, now what? lets try it again..... a flurry of mixolydian... stop, now what?

it's the cats that go.... "alright, now I need to kick it up a notch and subdivide this shit hella small" (sorry bout the west coast lingo) that really have an impact on the audience.

Speed can be a real asset when it comes to getting hired and keeping a reputation in a scene, but only if you can resolve your lines in a melodic way that people can follow. At least in my experience.

[musicjohnny]

If you suck, and you get faster; all you'll do is suck faster. hahaha

But on a serious note, I'm not really too fast and I don't worry about it. I'm young in my guitar career and I know that speed will come as time goes on, especially since I work on technique about an hour a day, and have come a long way too.

Hey Reg, you wouldn't happen to have any footage or audio or yourself on the axe would ya? I would really like to hear you play.

[Gilles]

If you suck, and you get faster; all you'll do is suck faster. hahaha.

I couldn't say it better!

Also : Think of Jim when you practice.

[Lambosoa]

I’ve been and still am quite ambivalent about the speed conundrum: like most of you guys, I know that speed is musically overrated, if not downright counter-productive, yet I still crave for it (and can’t achieve it).

Something that I would add to the debate is that there are different kinds of speed: on one hand there’s the raw speed, 16 nps scalar stuff a la Al Di Meola/John McLaughlin but, on the other hand, there’s a “slower speed” with very elaborate musical phrases; the typical example would be Metheny’s solo on “Have You Heard?” The latter impresses me much more than, say, the Guitar Trio (McLaughlin – DiMeola – De Lucia) stuff.

The super-fast shredding is pure mechanics, which doesn’t mean it’s easy to acquire; but once a musician acquires it, it becomes super-easy for him/her, it’s not anymore risk-taking, it can be played mindlessly and the problem is that it’s what they actually do. They tend to use and abuse of it and sacrifice musicality.

The process to acquire the “superfast” technique is not a big secret but as I said before it’s hard to actually achieve it. It’s a myth that it just comes with time, “like that”. You have to practice it, in the same way that if you want to compete in sprint running, you have to train specifically for that and not just do several miles of daily jogging each day.

Here’s the thing: arguably, most of us can play at 16Nps (or more) but only for fractions of seconds, beyond that duration we get all tense, accuracy goes down the drain and the phrase collapses, so the trick is to get rid of the tension… and then, good luck at that! Not only do you need to locate where the tension comes from but then you need to find the solution to prevent it from building up. For most of us it’s just Mission: Impossible.

What won’t work is to start slow and increase the metronome gradually. If you don’t find the way to get rid of the tension you’ll inevitably hit a speed-wall long before you reach the target.

[pierre richard]

its up to you...

some audiences will want to say" man he really played fast."..

some will say" he plays so melodically"...and I can hum/sing the one tune I really liked...

IMO everyone learns to fill the measure with notes...but not everyone plays a melody that most want to hear...to bop or not to bop...that's the question..

time on the instrument..pierre

[princeplanet]

Out of interest, I'd like to know how quick guys like Martino, Benson, or even Oberg are burning. My guess is 12 nps or less (8ths at 360 bpm), but those guys at even 10 or 11 nps are playing much harder lines that are making the changes. Even if, at that speed, they are only semi improvised, to anyone struggling with improv, that is more admirable than fast rock style playing, which even I can do at 12 nps all night, all over the neck without too many gaps. Infact I swear I was doing that after I'd only been playing for 3 years. Fast forward another 20 and I'm still struggling to improv Jazz well at half that speed.

[Reg]

If you suck, and you get faster; all you'll do is suck faster. hahaha

But on a serious note, I'm not really too fast and I don't worry about it. I'm young in my guitar career and I know that speed will come as time goes on, especially since I work on technique about an hour a day, and have come a long way too.

Hey Reg, you wouldn't happen to have any footage or audio or yourself on the axe would ya? I would really like to hear you play.

Being able to burn doesn't mean your a good player, but not being able to burn doesn't mean your a good player either, technique is just a tool to help you get out what you hear. I dig getting on the edge sometimes, pushing myself and those around. Sometimes you crash and burn, but the majority of the time it helps bring the energy up. Obviously there's a balance... I'll try and download some samples of some recent live gigs. Reg

[franco6719]

Out of interest, I'd like to know how quick guys like Martino, Benson, or even Oberg are burning. My guess is 12 nps or less (8ths at 360 bpm), but those guys at even 10 or 11 nps are playing much harder lines that are making the changes. Even if, at that speed, they are only semi improvised, to anyone struggling with improv, that is more admirable than fast rock style playing, which even I can do at 12 nps all night, all over the neck without too many gaps. Infact I swear I was doing that after I'd only been playing for 3 years. Fast forward another 20 and I'm still struggling to improv Jazz well at half that speed.

My thoughts exactly.

[Reg]

If you suck, and you get faster; all you'll do is suck faster. hahaha

But on a serious note, I'm not really too fast and I don't worry about it. I'm young in my guitar career and I know that speed will come as time goes on, especially since I work on technique about an hour a day, and have come a long way too.

Hey Reg, you wouldn't happen to have any footage or audio or yourself on the axe would ya? I would really like to hear you play.

Here are a few samples of my gigs, the 1st and 5th are one band, the 4th is from cheap camera, sorry for quality, not the greatest band but pretty typical jazz gig, I just show up and play not my favorite tunes... the 2nd and 3rd are live Big Band gig, great band...I can only download short sections sections, no rehearsals just play. 6th and 7th another band that rotates players in depending on gig, the 7th is just an arrangement I wrote out at a session and liked...Reg

[peterk1]

My teacher brings most exercises up to
o 8ths at 160 , 16ths at 80
o triplets at 120

If people want to learn to play consistently faster than that in the lessons, he does it but makes clear that it's going to take a fairly large time commitment to gain and maintain the higher tempos.

I'm finding the above speeds are decent as a foundation, I'll occasionally have to do stuff faster than that, and I just work on those on a case by base basis. I'm never going to be able to really burn, but that's OK.