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How fast can you play 16th notes?

How fast can you play 16th notes?

  • <40 BPM

    Votes: 5 2.7%

  • 40 to 60 BPM

    Votes: 7 3.8%

  • 60 to 80 BPM

    Votes: 8 4.3%

  • 80 to 100 BPM

    Votes: 31 16.8%

  • 100-120 BPM

    Votes: 44 23.8%

  • 120 to 140 BPM

    Votes: 35 18.9%

  • >140 BPM

    Votes: 55 29.7%
  • Total voters
    185
  • Poll closed .
#161
SteveCS said:
What have I said that contradicts anything that wikipedia, that font of all human knowledge, has to say on the subject? If anything you've just proved my point. At no time did I say all, I said conventionally. Which means that, unless otherwise indicated on the score (and composers do have to bend the rules from time to time), any trained musician, myself included, will, by default, read 6/8 as two to the bar, 3 for 9/8, etc...
Click to expand...
If you're reading 6/8 as two beats per bar, then your feel is going to suck. If you're reading 12/8 as 4/4, then your feel is going to suck. It's maybe a handy shortcut to break a bar down that way, but you *have* to feel all of those 8ths.

The point I've been consistently making to you is that the time signature means something - there are reasons why we use 6/8 instead of 2/2 or doubles of 3/4. There are reasons why we use 12/8 instead of 4/4. Specifically, one of those reasons is bpm - particularly relevant to this thread.

However, *you* quoted *my* post. Why was that, exactly? If someone asks me at what bpm I can play 16ths, the time signature is pretty important, no? BPM will be significant to 8ths if the time signature is in 6/8 or 12/8 - not dotted quarter notes, unless that is specifically called out at the top of the chart.
 
#162
MtManiac said:
...

However, *you* quoted *my* post. Why was that, exactly? ...
Click to expand...

I thought your point about time signature and tempo was a good one when talking about the rate of the semiquavers, and, given some of the crazy responses, I thought it worthy of clarification.

I thought you were posing a question in good faith, so I answered in good faith.

Seems you just wanted to start something, so my bad, I guess.

Incidentally, there may be plenty of people reading this who need to expand on how to read and intepret time signatures, or 'feel the 8ths', as you put it. I thank you for your concern but I am not one of them.
 
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#163
SteveCS said:
I thought your point about time signature and tempo was a good one when talking about the rate of the semiquavers, and, given some of the crazy responses, I thought it worthy of clarification.

I thought you were posing a question in good faith, so I answered in good faith.

Seems you just wanted to start something, so my bad, I guess.
Click to expand...
“I’m good faith,” while you needlessly contradict me and insult my education.
 
#168
MtManiac said:
I'm all done, but I'll just say this - the more you sidestep accountability for your own actions and project blame onto others, the harder your life is going to be.
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Even your wikipedia article agrees with @SteveCS . I'm not sure why you are championing the idea that x/8 time is not compound time or divided 3 eight notes per beat. The top number represents subdivisions, not beats. It happens that in simple time signatures they are the same. Read through your wikipedia article, it says in 6/8 a dotted quarter note is the beat...two per measure.

"
Compound
In compound meter, subdivisions (which are what the upper number represents in these meters) of the beat are in three equal parts, so that a dotted note (half again longer than a regular note) becomes the beat. The upper numeral of compound time signatures is commonly 3, 6, 9, or 12 (multiples of 3 in each beat). The lower number is most commonly an 8 (an eighth-note or quaver): as in
9 /8 or 12 / 8.
 
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#169
SteveCS said:
All I did was state some basic facts, from an equally educated position (not that it matters), so I'm happy to own that.
Click to expand...
Ok - I’ll accept and concede that I took an erroneous interpretation of your comment, became entrenched, and spoke arrogantly, superiorly, without sufficient grounds. Today, I am a bloated gas bag. I was an a$$. I sincerely apologize. You are not wrong; you are right.

The original point, I believe I’ve made an you’ve accepted. The secondary point I was making was that 6/8 and 12/8 do not have 2-4 beats per bar, they have maybe “implied” beats at the dotted quarter note, they’re different time signatures than 2/4 (or 2*3/4) or 4/4. The eighth notes mean something, more than just a triplet set of 8ths on every beat.

The best example I can think of for what I’m talking about is “Whipping Post” by the Allman Brothers. Much of the song is in 11/8, and some parts are in 12/8. There isn’t really any distinction in feel between the 11/8 sections and the 12/8 sections, just the feeling that there’s a missing beat in the 11/8 sections. But both sections are for sure an 8th note based time signature, feel-wise, the 8th note on each implied beat, followed by four 16ths - it’s kind of a dizzying, going mad sort of feel. The feel is very different from an 8th followed by two 16ths, which has a galloping horse feel to it.

I tried thinking of just one example where a 6/8 time signature had anything other than an implied 2/4 beat, like maybe a double time 3/4 beat, and I came up empty handed. That’s when I realized I needed to concede the point, and then realized everything that must naturally occur to me after that.

Just another day on the internet... sigh.
 
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#170
MtManiac said:
Ok - I’ll accept and concede that I took an erroneous interpretation of your comment, became entrenched, and spoke arrogantly, superiorly, without sufficient grounds. Today, I am a bloated gas bag. I was an a$$. I sincerely apologize. You are not wrong; you are right.

The original point, I believe I’ve made an you’ve accepted. The secondary point I was making was that 6/8 and 12/8 do not have 2-4 beats per bar, they have maybe “implied” beats at the dotted quarter note, they’re different time signatures than 2/4 (or 2*3/4) or 4/4. The eighth notes mean something, more than just a triplet set of 8ths on every beat.

The best example I can think of for what I’m talking about is “Whipping Post” by the Allman Brothers. Much of the song is in 11/8, and some parts are in 12/8. There isn’t really any distinction in feel between the 11/8 sections and the 12/8 sections, just the feeling that there’s a missing beat in the 11/8 sections. But both sections are for sure an 8th note based time signature, feel-wise, the 8th note on each implied beat, followed by four 16ths - it’s kind of a dizzying, going mad sort of feel. The feel is very different from an 8th followed by two 16ths, which has a galloping horse feel to it.

I tried thinking of just one example where a 6/8 time signature had anything other than an implied 2/4 beat, like maybe a double time 3/4 beat, and I came up empty handed. That’s when I realized I needed to concede the point, and then realized everything that must naturally occur to me after that.

Just another day on the internet... sigh.
Click to expand...

Thanks, and appreciated.
'Whipping Post' is an interesting example. I'm not old enough to know the original but I first heard the Zappa version in 1984. Without knowing anything about it - if I were handed a recording and asked to transcribe, for ease of reading, i.e. not clogging the score with long measures and loads of beams, I would simplify it to 3/4 and just drop in a 2/4 measure every 4th measure. According to wikipedia (sorry, it's all I've got on this example!), Gregg Alman (who again according to wikipedia readily admits he didn't actually know) originally concieved it as 123 123 123 12. The benefits of 3/4 are that each '1' gets equal emphasis, which I think was your point, at least in part, and it is easier for a reader to realise the slighly swung 1/8ths than to try to swing 1/16ths, even at close on 200bpm.

In similar vein, the Sussex Carol (there's my background showing again) is 6/8 with a single measure of 9/8 towards the end (third from last) of each verse. Some scores show 6/4 and 9/4, but I suspect that is more for ease of reading through watery eyes when shivering under a streetlamp in the snow!
 
#172
MtManiac said:
Thanks for doing simple arithmetic for me, but it’s not necessary.

Time signatures are important, for reasons. Quite a lot of music is not in 4/4 time. In 6/8, the beat is not a dotted quarter, it’s an 8th. That’s what the numbers literally mean. 6 beats per bar, each beat is an 8th note. Two 8ths equal a quarter note, a dotted quarter equals three 8ths. If each beat were a dotted quarter in 6/8, there’d be two beats per bar, which anybody can clearly hear is not the case.
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Well in my experience 6/8 is almost always counted in 2, so each beat is a dotted quarter. And I mean I can’t recall ever counting 6/8 other than 2 beats per measure, and 12/8 as 4 beats per measure.

Every score in my memory that really wants you to count out 6 beats is annotated as 6/4.
 
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#173
MtManiac said:
If you're reading 6/8 as two beats per bar, then your feel is going to suck. If you're reading 12/8 as 4/4, then your feel is going to suck. It's maybe a handy shortcut to break a bar down that way, but you *have* to feel all of those 8ths.

The point I've been consistently making to you is that the time signature means something - there are reasons why we use 6/8 instead of 2/2 or doubles of 3/4. There are reasons why we use 12/8 instead of 4/4. Specifically, one of those reasons is bpm - particularly relevant to this thread.

However, *you* quoted *my* post. Why was that, exactly? If someone asks me at what bpm I can play 16ths, the time signature is pretty important, no? BPM will be significant to 8ths if the time signature is in 6/8 or 12/8 - not dotted quarter notes, unless that is specifically called out at the top of the chart.
Click to expand...
I fundamentally disagree with this post. In all 6/8 tunes I’ve ever played if you are not feeling as two pulses of triplets that’s when your feel is going to suck.

Are you familiar with “America”, by Bernstein, from West Side Story? It switches constantly between 3/4 and 6/8; the 6/8 bars definitely have a “2” feel.

6/8: “I like to Be in a”
3/4: “Mer Ri Ca”
 
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#174
HolmeBass said:
I fundamentally disagree with this post. In all 6/8 tunes I’ve ever played if you are not feeling as two pulses of triplets that’s when your feel is going to suck.

Are you familiar with “America”, by Bernstein, from West Side Story? It switches constantly between 3/4 and 6/8; the 6/8 bars definitely have a “2” feel.

6/8: “I like to Be in a”
3/4: “Mer Ri Ca”
Click to expand...
ok.
 
#178
LBS-bass said:
I'd like to hear those songs. Not the poster playing them, but the actual songs. Could we get some examples? Preferably with 16th notes this fast that are not just repetitive hits of the same note?
Click to expand...
Here is how I think about the constant "16ths" flow in the bass.
Let's take "Come on With it" - POW and Francis Rocco Prestia.
It's at 97BPM.
In my music world, any bass player who is able to play it fingerstyle comfortably (sustainably) has achieved a high degree of bass guitar technique.
When I say, comfortably, I mean the following:
A bass player can(only) play at, minimum, 130% of the given tempo but not(!) with any desired articulation, dynamics, solidness, etc...
So, if I want to play that bass-line comfortably, I need to play that bass-line at 130BPM without problems over a long period of time (let's say, 3.5 minutes).

 
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