How fast are you guys?

idssdi · Apr 16, 2019

Even though I find speed one of the less important things in music I got bored a while ago and decided to check how many notes I can play per second. At 60 BPM 16th notes would give you 4 notes per second for example(at 60 bpm each beat is a second and 16th notes are 4 notes per beat). So I tried to see how many I could do and got to 5 notes per beat at 180 bpm which is 15 notes per second(I didn’t care any more whether I could go faster than that). How many can you guys play per second?
Remember music is not a contest I’m just interested

Andrew Fernandes · Apr 16, 2019

Im not fast enough

Isaac Moss · Apr 16, 2019

I’m not sure actually, I’ll have to find out when I get home today! Were you just tremolo picking or playing individual notes?

Jak Angelescu · Apr 16, 2019

I think it really depends on what I’m playing. For example I can easily do 16th notes with Palm muted rhythms and 180 BPMs but for lead work 135 is my general safe spot

idssdi · Apr 16, 2019

It was all individual notes just up and down the E natural minor scale economy picked.

Calvin Phillips · Apr 16, 2019

I’ve never sat down and thought about the speed in play the notes. They could be triplets or whatever I couldn’t tell you lol.

Aaron Shepanik · Apr 16, 2019

I’ve been able to play 16th’s at 140 bpm for like a year and have never been able to get passed that. Of course any solo I want to learn requires me to play faster than that so fml LOL.

Noah Berends · Apr 16, 2019

I sat down and did a little bit of testing of this a while back out of curiosity, and the peak speed I was able to hit accurately on a legato run was between 20-23 notes per second depending on fingers used in the pattern

This reply was modified 6 months, 3 weeks ago by Noah Berends.

This reply was modified 6 months, 3 weeks ago by Noah Berends.

Firsty Lasty · Apr 17, 2019

Honestly I can’t get my alternate picking exercises clean at 16th notes 150 bpm most days. That’s because I didn’t start learning alternate picking properly until after owning guitars for I think about 20 years haha fml. If I wanted to get something going really fast my best chance would be with a combination of legato & economy picking.

Christopher Lonski · Apr 21, 2019

The fastest I was able to pick back in the day was 16th notes at 360 or 24 per second, which at the time broke the record from what I was able to find but this was also the beginning of the online guitarists competition to beat each other in speed and people posted stuff much faster not long after I hit that speed. I can tell that I have never found a song that required me to play 24 notes a second or one that even sounded good at that speed.
One of the best things I ever heard about having crazy speed was told to me by my guitar teacher at the time, Alex Machacek. He said playing shreddy stuff like that is kinda like showing someone a magic trick-
You show it to someone once, and they’re like “WOW! That’s amazing!”
Show it to them again, and they’re like “Alright man, that’s pretty cool”
Show it a third time, and they’re like “Ok, do you know how to do anything else? I’ve seen that already”
People like music for music’s sake. They don’t want to see the say trick over and over again. This really goes for a tone of shred music out there. Your playing has to have rhythm, a groove, good harmony, good melody- just something to make it musically different or interesting, otherwise most people wont really care.

Ed Seith · Apr 22, 2019

@Lonski, Jesus H Christmas, you serious? That’s insane, dude. You’re right, though. No real applicable uses. MA Batio has incredible speed. Can anyone name a song by him? I can’t.

Sayonil Mitra · Apr 24, 2019

I am slow. Can hardly go to 5 per sec.
24 per sec!!! wow Lonski

Christopher Lonski · Apr 24, 2019

Yeah dude, it was kinda cool. But I was going to school at MI at the time and I realized pretty quick that most people didnt give a shit. Id play something like that and then you’d see/hear an asian kind in the next room jamming with Scott Henderson playing the tastiest jazz or fusion shit and it would put you to shame. Which btw, those Japanese and Korean students just dominated that school. You could go at 2 or 3am and all the practice rooms would be taken up by these dudes just practicing their asses off. There were a few shredders that thought it was cool, but again, it’s a novelty that wears off quick. And also, it’s not like I could play EVERYTHING that fast. There are certain scale patterns that are easier than others and positions on the fretboard that are easier. I definitely wasnt playing 2 note per string pentatonic patterns at the first fret.
It’s funny you brought up michael angelo batio btw! He was actually one of my favorites when I was like 16 because I was so driven on being the best technically. I used to have his “No boundaries” instructional DVD and was able to play that way back then. I met him when I was 17 and actually got to play that double guitar too. There’s a pic floating around on the internet somewhere of a very long-haired Chris holding it and posing with MAB. But you are correct, his songs arent super memorable for the most part. He actually does have some cool melodies here and there, but for the most part its just scales or arpeggios up and down.

Christopher Lonski · Apr 24, 2019

Sayonil- dude you’ll get way more actual paying musical gigs playing 5 notes a second than you will 24, beyond a shadow of a doubt. Just make them really good notes played on good beats and play them with conviction.

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