Poll: How Fast Are You?

[kenbennett]

All I know is when I go double-time, I often bail out early.

Hey, is this a crutch? Sometimes I want to go double but I already know the tempo is too fast for me, so before I can stop myself, I fall into triplets.

[larry graves]

Playing fast is flash! impresses a lot of people , great party piece!.....

[ecj]

The surest sign to me that someone doesn't listen to a lot of great music is when they get all upset about playing with speed or incredible technique. This is the demesne of blues players who know 6 licks, guys, not jazz guitarists.

Amazing pieces that require amazing technique:

So unmusical!

[Vladan]

This is about 5th OT thread within a thread, but that's good, really.

I think,one can express own self the best at personal comfortable speed. I t may be slower, or faster than the music runing inside the head, but it still is the best possible tempo.
For example, there are times I'd play really slow, but I can not, because my timing suck big time. Therefofe I have to play faster, trying to mask it up. If I go too fast, I lose my self if stay there for any longer than couple of bars.
So, my comfortable tempo range in 8ths is somewhere from 100 - 150. I can go slower, but swung 8ths quickly turn into trioles. I can go 160, even faster, but on gear change, instead of 16ths, I'll also play triplets.

Also, as someone mentioned, ther's a huge difference btw playing fast passages of 16ths and smaller divisions in slower tempo, and playing the whole song faster. Playing whole song in faster tempo is much more difficult,
For example. I could comfortably play triplets at 120, but can hardly play 8ths at 180, which is the same number of notes in given time.

Whatever the case, speed is really important, and I don't understand how could one diss it as some useless skill.
Fact, that some beautifull songs are in slower tempos has nothing to do with the way one would improvise over those changes. Also, fact that some people can pull fast tempo, or not so fast, while keeping time doesn't, per se, make them worth listening. Technicaly inclined could say: the right time and correct time do not always coincide.
Music is art, it's more than certain notes played at correct place in time, mechanical pianos and music boxes ciuld do that, at any tempo, or modern incarnation calked MIDI sequencer. Just for analogy, like not every photo is art, and some hyperrealistic paintings are pure kitch. If it wasn't so BIAB, or those robots from other thread, would be the best musicians in the world, but it has nothing to do with tempo, or note subdivisions they're set to play back.

[Reg]

Personally... most creative, very clean, emotional players with great feel etc... may not be playing fast passages or phrases, but they're able to subdivide and help create that feel from being able to cover faster tempos.

You need to at least be able to hear at faster tempos... which many times is what breaks down performance practice at faster tempos.

Typically playing jazz is not just being able to perform memorized whatever... It's real time playing, how fast you can play what you don't know.

Maybe we should have... how creative or with how much feeling can you play poll. How slow can you play... anticipation
of the next.............note, wait

[Reg]

Isn't that most of the fun... most of use don't know what the circle is and don't really care. We're just throwing wood on the fire, and maybe once in a while someone sees something from the light.

What would give someone's opinion about playing fast credibility? I would believe we would have just as many opinions and again be spinning in circles. Who cares, it's just fun. Sometimes really funny...

I know what I'm talking about.... because I'm telling you so, because someone told me so, wait I have a bunch of degrees, they tell me so... I've made lots of $... wait you mean I actually have to back up what I'm talking about. Let me record something a few times... I'll get it right, dam I'm back where I started, nowhere. I think I'll just fan the fire.

[GiantSteps]

I clearly don`t see why someone would want to play faster than eights at 300 bpm. There are only a few tunes that even go that high. And honestly anything faster wouldn`t be too musical.

[ecj]

I clearly don`t see why someone would want to play faster than eights at 300 bpm. There are only a few tunes that even go that high. And honestly anything faster wouldn`t be too musical.

I hope against hope that, given your username, you meant this post to be ironic.

[ronjazz]

You need one more voting button: "Does it really matter?"

Actually, it does matter, not only the pure speed of 1/8 or 1/16 notes, but the control that allows one to phrase musically comes from being able to play quickly and accurately. Benson is a good example because he phrases VERY freely, in groups of 5 and 6 and 7 against 1 or 2 beats, etc. Again, the raw speed of single-note lines may seem unimportant to some, but it is a tool that all top-tier musicians utilize in every style of music. Playing scales of all types, likewise, creates an ease of vocabulary as well as coordination between the hands. Along with scale studies, interval studies are invaluable in freeing up both the hands and the ears to break the monotony of a scalar improvising style.

Playing smooth and legato melodies like a horn involves very quick motions to keep the notes connected, even at a ballad tempo.

[mrblues]

Well, I belong to the 120-140 section with alternate picking, hammer ons and pull offs would help to improve speed. I recognized that my speed decreases when playing from high "E" string to low, so I need some technical stuff to get the balance between my up and down tempo.

[bondmorkret]

I've never really interested myself in matters of speed. The guitar playing should shape itself around the changes, if speed is needed it will develop in its own pace

[ronjazz]

I've never really interested myself in matters of speed. The guitar playing should shape itself around the changes, if speed is needed it will develop in its own pace

What makes you think that? Speed doesn't develop by itself, or nobody would ever need to practice. Speed studies improve control, tone, phrasing and your ability to hear what's going on. We're talking jazz here, the most advanced form of musical expression in our culture.

[JakeAcci]

I've never really interested myself in matters of speed. The guitar playing should shape itself around the changes, if speed is needed it will develop in its own pace

Plain and simple, I've been working on this stuff for quite some time and the perspective above just doesn't actually work.

[jacofish1]

Plain and simple, I've been working on this stuff for quite some time and the perspective above just doesn't actually work.

Couldn't agree more.... Usain Bolt didnt get to his world record sprint time by walking and jogging and saying ill get there in time. He figured out the process of how to run fast with great form, and looked at what was slowing him down. As soon as I analyzed what was going wrong with my technique it got a lot better quickly. If you don't address problems they wont go away.

[KeithEG]

Hey y'all,
It's my first post here, got an email pointer to this thread, got me curious, so I measured my top speed for the 1st time ever (have been playing since 1970).
I measured left hand speed vs. right hand speed, plectrum vs. fingerstyle speed.
The real reason I did it is I switched to bass recently, and watching Jaco's Modern Bass video its always pissed me off how much faster his right hand i-m-i-m picking is than mine, even though I've worked at it for decades, studied and performed classical guitar since college (1980).
On guitar or bass, using strict i-m-i-m, I can only do 16ths at 110 bpm, limited entirely by right hand.
On his video, I've clocked Jaco at 165 bpm, so he's fully 50% faster than me, dammit!
What makes this really frustrating is that on guitar, I copied Allan Holdsworth and Al DiMeola, and could play almost as fast as them on electric guitar.
So when I measured my left hand speed, playing simple pulloffs, I was a bit surprised at the result:
I kept turning up the drum machine tempo, and I was still doing 16ths cleanly when it ran out of gas at 240 bpm.
I figured I had to be doing something wrong, but found the fastest my left hand could go was 270 bpm.
This was playing a 3-finger pulloff on the 1st string, mini-tab: ---3---2---1---0.
I measured the speed by using the online tap tempo app at all8.com, doing the pulloffs with the left hand while tapping the computer keyboard with the right hand.
Now, 270 bpm is the absolute fastest of the easiest pattern I could find.
Next I measured a more generalized pattern, using part of the pseudo-chromatic warmup pattern I always use:

-----------------------------------------1
-------------------------------1-2-3-4
---------------------1-2-3-4
-----------1-2-3-4
-1-2-3-4------
Using all hammer ons on the way up, all pull offs on the way down, top speed was a surprising 250 bpm!
Then I measured how fast I could play Holdsworth type chromatic riffs, top speed was 210 bpm.
Playing major/minor scale riffs, still almost all pull offs and hammer ons, top speed was 190 bpm.


Moving on to the right hand speed with plectrum: I can do this at 180 bpm, burst, 170 bpm sustained, thanks to slaving over Al DiMeola records since freshman year high school.
But right hand speed with i-m-i-m, as already reported, is only 110 bpm burst, 100 bpm sustained.
So when I took up bass recently, I used a rolling three-finger approach instead: ---a---m--i---.
This is the way Billy Sheehan plays, and as he notes, its hard to avoid "galloping" rhythmically, but my top speed, after only a year of practicing it, is much better: 135 bpm, as opposed to 100 bpm.

So I guess the most interesting comparison here is right hand fingerstyle vs. plectrum picking:
I can do 180 bpm with a pick, but only 110 bpm with i-m-i-m.
Is it typical to be 65% faster with a pick than fingerstyle?

And hey, for some groovy organ trio jazz-rock, check out Niacin live in Tokyo, with Billy Sheehan, John Novello, Dennis Chambers:

[ecj]

I would be really interested to see a video of you playing clean 16ths at 250bpm. Hammer-ons, pull-offs. Whatever you have to do.

That is insanely fast.

[KeithEG]

I would be really interested to see a video of you playing clean 16ths at 250bpm. Hammer-ons, pull-offs. Whatever you have to do. That is insanely fast.

Hey ECJ,
You're certainly right to query further, especially how accurately was it measured. It's really hard to measure one's speed precisely at these tempos. When I first got 270-250 bpm for left hand, I didn't believe it. Slept on it, measured again in different way the next day, and when repeated measurements using both techniques agreed, and could be repeated within +/- 5bpm or so, ie, 95% accurately, I called it a day.

First measurements was with a drum machine. Play 17 notes, start on the bass drum downbeat on 1, end on the next measure downbeat bass note. Max drum machine tempo was 240bpm, and I could still do the pseudo-chromatic riff, up and down, smoothly, cleanly. Looked online for a good tap tempo program for Macs, couldn't find one. Did a few measurements with a useless tap tempo program, wasn't worth continuing, set it aside overnight.

Next day found a better tap tempo app at Tap for Beats Per Minute BPM.
It's better because it will average out several taps, showing average bpm, and individual tap bpms (albeit briefly). But at 200+ bpm, accuracy of tapping on the keyboard is limited (fastest I could type one key with one finger was 350 keystrokes/minute). So I'd also tap tempo for half notes, ie, every 8 notes, tap at notes 1 & 9. Got about 120-130 bpm, as expected, half of 250-270 bpm measured when tapping quarter notes.

That's the long answer. I might post a video, or a youtube video of a shred-surf-Satriani instrumental song for which someone asked me to lay down lead tracks in his recording studio back in the 90s, saying, "Shred as fast as you can!". But I promise, these measurements are honest, real, accurate.

But what's important is, how do we use speed musically? How do these numbers translate into how I play guitar solos?

In fact, my most surprising find was about musical application of top speed: I ALWAYS played triplets when blazing at max speed for the solo climax!!! Why? Is it picking mechanics, or is it musical aesthetic? It's a bit of both, but the real answer is the fastest rock tempos are 150-160 bpm, and 16th notes at typical rock tempos of 120-130 bpm is 60% below my top speed, but triplet-16ths are getting closer to top speed.

Next, how to use this musically. First, don't do what Allan Holdwsorth did at solo gigs. Blaze full speed at almost every show from start to finish in every solo. Way, way, way too many notes. Ear fatigue sets in within 10-15 minutes.
Use speed judiciously, only at the climax of the solo, and only on the type of songs (upbeat, hard rocking, not ballads or love songs) that merit that type of playing. Maybe add ultra fast flourishes on the last note of longer, slower, legato phrases.

Next, one takes these patterns and finds interesting variations around the fretboard. If you take the ---1-2-3-4---, and change it to --12-14-15-17--, and run that up and down really fast, permutations thereon, you get some really cool Holdsworth type sounding runs.
Or take the ---3-2-1-0-- left hand only 270 bpm riff. Change it to: --3-2-0--3-2-0--5-3-0--5-3-0-, triplet-16ths, hey, you're rockin! Or slow down a bit, and do chordal arpeggiations over a pedal point open E string, eg, E7-Am: --4-5-0--7-4-0--8-5-0--7-5-0--.

Next thing is a good test vehicle for speed applied musically (at least musically enough for 70's fusion :-) is Jeff Beck's "Scatterbrain", on the live album with Jan Hammer group, because they play it quite a bit faster than studio version on "Blow by Blow". Also good for practicing making measurements. But it's kind of tricky because it's in 9, the phrase is 18 notes long. It's also an excellent practice pattern for ultra-fast-left-hand-slur work (only strings 3 and 4 shown):

----------------------------3-----3--4--3--4--6--4--3--
---3--4--3--4--6--4--6------6--------------------------6--4--

As best I can measure it, Jeff & Jan & pals are playing this at a max tempo of 165 bpm toward the end of the song. It seems to me they're playing it absolutely as fast as they can.

Bla bla bla, this post is already too long...

Basically, ever since I heard Al Dimeola play in 1977, I wanted to make my electric guitar sound like a machine gun like him. Or John McLaughlin. Good machine gun riffs are 6 note patterns, triplet-16ths, played across 2 strings, 1 & 2 (E & B). Pluck each note, it's all about RH picking speed. 3 patterns shown, repeat each 6-note grouping AFAP (as fast as possible :-)

----10--8--7----------------!!----------------7------------!!----10--8--7------7--8----!!
----------------10--8--7----!!----7--8--10-----10--8----!!----------------10----------!!

(Edit: Here's the surf-Satriani-shred-fest. Machine-gun-riff at 3:15. Racer X pic because it's all about playing AFAP!!! :-)

)

[Vladan]

I'll read Keith's 2nd post when i get some tie to do so, he he. Ergo, It's really easy to measure your real speed. Just find a backing track at some tempo and see if you can play something meaaningfull over it, in requested subdivisions. Playing pull ofs at first 3 frets + open is about the same as hitting QWER, ie., completely meaningless in regard to playing guitar.

[KeithEG]

Do you have a camera on your laptop? A digital camera with a video function?

Record some of this stuff so we can see it. I would love to see someone play that fast, because I honestly can't quite even imagine what it would sound like.

Hey ECJ,
Thanks for listening to the tune, and for the compliment.
I'll try to post a video, haven't done it before, but will try.

Until then, a bit more on applied speed:
The tempo of the youtube tune "Hidden" is 138 bpm.
At 3:15, I'm playing the machine gun riff, triplet-16ths, at 140 bpm, each note plucked, again, it's all about RH speed.
Triplet-sixteenths at 140 bpm is the same as regular 16ths at 50% faster tempo, or 210 bpm.
But in my first post, I said my RH plectrum picking speed is 180 bpm.
Why the substantial difference between measurements then and now, 210bpm vs. 180bpm, a 15% difference?
Answer:
I could play much faster back then. I was 30 years old then, now 50. Played a LOT then, now just starting up again.

Next point:
It's interesting to convert these metrics to notes/second to get a better idea of the limits of human physiology.

I've clocked Jaco, Jan, Jeff playing 16th notes at 165 bpm.
16ths at 165 bpm works out to (11 notes / second). (165 * 4 / 60)

I've just clocked myself playing triplet-16ths at 140 bpm, same as 16ths at 210 bpm.
This works out to (14 notes / second).

The poll shows a bell-curve distribution, with median at 140 bpm. Ergo most poll respondents can play 16ths at 140bpm.
This works out to (9.33 notes / second).

[KeithEG]

Playing pull ofs at first 3 frets + open is about the same as hitting QWER, ie., completely meaningless in regard to playing guitar.

Ahem...

[Vladan]

At the moment I'm not in the position to listen to Vai clip, but I admit to be imprecise and possibly have overstated in previous post.

Further, obviously, I meant meaningless in regard to determining how fast one is. Comparison was to fast blind typing, where typing QWER means nothing about how fast one can type.

Also, It's not too uncommon in Guitar Hero HM type of music to have four 1/2 steps played in succession, but that's usually rather a sound trick than meaningful music (Jazz?).
After I give this a listen, one of these days, I'll know how far off target I was in above. I mean, Vai is genius player, so impossible could be expected.

[Vladan]

Listened. Must admit, I quite enjoyed it, but I don't think he ever played mentioned riff "3210", while his attitude surely is as you described it. Also, I don't think the tempo was even close to 270bpm.

[KeithEG]

I am extremely fast I control Earth's rotation speed.

Superman flew around the Earth so fast, he reversed it's rotation, thus, of course, reversing the flow of time, allowing him to arrive just in time to save Lois Lane's life. Now that's fast! :-)

[AlanGM]

I use to care tons about speed and technique when I was 18 or so. I was really into tapping as well. Speed is important for me, I love to play fast stuff every now and then.

But then I started practicing jazz and other styles and I didn't have to focus on speed so much because all the solos that I was transcribing at the time were quite challenging for me. For example C. Brown's solo on Cherokee was the most difficult thing for me to play and still is. It is freaking fast.

[KeithEG]

I use to care tons about speed and technique when I was 18 or so.

This sums it up nicely. It's only good and natural for aspiring young guitarists to wanna see how fast they can shred compared to others, friends and guitar heroes alike. Then we mature and realize speed is a means, not an end -- or the bottom drops out of the guitar hero market, whichever came first. Damn that Kurt Cobain kid! :-)

My initial query was in part to illustrate that reducing the question to "How fast are you?" is perhaps oversimplifying, at least for a jazz guitar technique forum. And I did want to see why I can't do i-m-i-m faster than 16th's at 110 bpm -- I think that's because I didn't start doing it until 17-18, and didn't develop the physiology for it, whereas I'd been playing (lots!) with a pick from age 9-10 on. (Did you know that a person who has played a lot of guitar since their youth will have longer left hand fingers than right hand? It's true, try it!)

And as you say, the greater challenge in jazz is the cerebral challenge -- to be able to think fast changes quickly enough to play a fluid melodic line, hitting the important chord tones on measure downbeats to show you're nailing the changes, something I never really could do like top flight jazzers. Trying to play tough changes at 150 bpm is almost impossibly difficult.

To the naysayers, you first gotta be able to play fast, before you can play over fast changes. And if playing over fast changes isn't important to jazz -- then why did they hold "cutting sessions" in the early days? Charlie Parker did play fast, didn't he?