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How many bpm can you play?

#41
4001 said:
Who cares ? Why is this so important ?
The people you're selling beer to don't give a rats bunghole about how many BPM's you can play just like they don't care about your tone.

Silly.



:rollno:
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I played this back at 0.25x speed. It is unrecognizable as Flight of The Bumble Bee.

I want to see something played fast enough that the bpm can just be written as E1 or A2.
 
#43
MrNoob said:
How many bpm can you guys play? Just curious. I'm a beginner who's taking lessons and my teacher is keeping track of my progress with them. So far he has me down for 60bpm but I can play up to 90 just not quite as well as I need to.
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I don't know! :D
I've never done the exercise you mention, honestly. A little discipline is good. Keep pushing the boundaries, yes.

Well I put a drum loop on , and played a bit. I'm not sure exactly where I start to get sloppy, but I really start to notice it doing 8th note patterns like you have in a lot of driving rock songs. I like doing those classic 50's-esque basslines at somewhat frantic tempos on rolling 8th notes , which I first heard in the Ziggy tunes.


I hear maybe a *little* slop in Trevor's playing in the beginning of the outro. Bowie tended to demand the songs be done within 3-4 takes, and we are often hearing 1st takes on the stuff from this period, especially the vocals.

I start to get sloppy on 8ths at that tempo around a minute into the tune, honestly. or at least am in danger of losing it. forearm cramp ahhhhhhhhhhh cannot stop 8th notes ......
 
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#47
MrNoob said:
How many bpm can you guys play? Just curious. I'm a beginner who's taking lessons and my teacher is keeping track of my progress with them. So far he has me down for 60bpm but I can play up to 90 just not quite as well as I need to.
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Welcome to Talkbass!!!!!

I have no idea how many BPMs I can play.... other than "enough". :D
 
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#48
Speed kills ... so I've been told. :rolleyes:

I hope that your instructor is just setting a comfortable speed at which to learn. It's not about how fast you can bang on one note/string, but whether you can play a more complex bass line at the tempo required by the song. And to do that one starts slow and works up to speed.
 
#49
we use metronomes to Better our timing ... as in having good tempo

i understand what you're getting at ,... but it is really kind of a moot point ..?!

i can play as fast as i've ever needed to ... ( piano for 54 yrs , bass/gtr for 44 yrs )

if i'm working on something that needs more speed , i'd practice it slower until i can play it at speed ... that's when the metronome can help increase speed while keeping timing in check ..!! that is , until you've developed a better ' internal ' clock ..!
 
#50
My little brother had this mindset when I started showing him how to play bass. He was always looking to play things as fast as he could. I don't think speed is a good measure of progress on bass. I used to play metal and had an easy enough time with it, now I'm in a folk group and it's harder. Knowing when to play and when not to play, space is a lot harder than speed in my opinion.
 
#54
MrNoob said:
How many bpm can you guys play? Just curious. I'm a beginner who's taking lessons and my teacher is keeping track of my progress with them. So far he has me down for 60bpm but I can play up to 90 just not quite as well as I need to.
Click to expand...

I haven't read through this thread so forgive me if I am repeating someone else. I don't know how many beats per minute I can play. I know I can play fast tempos if I need to.

But I think you should know, in my experience it is way, way harder to play a very slow tempo. Your instructor should be sure you understand this. Try playing a very (and I mean VERY) slow country two beat or four beat walk. Or an equally slow blues.

Playing fast is easy with practice. Playing a slow tempo with accurate time (don't rush), feel and note length is much more difficult in my opinion.
 

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