Double Bass Let's Talk BPM....

[Ed S]

I count 336 BPM. Bass playing one note per beat. ...

You say that YOU count. Do you discuss rhythm with other folk in this manner? Do other folk on these forums?

Can you show me transcriptions that show such stratospheric bpms? Perhaps it occurs. I've just never heard such a thing.

I guess what you mean is you've not heard BLUGRASS players describe a tempo of a BLUEGRASS tune as greater than 200, and I'd agree, since BG is almost always PLAYED in two - except when it isn't....

Well, the question WAS posed in a BG forum!

(I'm not trying to be pissy or beat a dead horse. Just wanna make sure I'm not flaunting my ignorance when I flap my yap.)

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

It's really common on written music and/or transcriptions to include the metronome marking of the piece being notated. In notation, inserting a quarter note symbol where I will write "Q", it would look something like "Q=320" or whatever. I have done transcriptions where the walking tempo was about this. Also, earlier this year I took part in a recording of a piece where one movement was in 11/4 with the half note was marked at 120, which was fun!

 

[Don Hergert]

In 2007 Todd Taylor set a Guinness World Record on the banjo at 210bpm (in 4, btw). It wowed some bluegrass folks for a while but for most of the bluegrass community it became sort of unimportant within a year or so. Getting back to the real world, speed isn't everything.

Now in my 5th decade playing banjo, mando, Dobro and recently double bass in bluegrass settings, my observation is that in my personal playing, high speed is usually one of the least important considerations. More important is tone, sensitive volume and supporting the people that I'm playing with.

Age does make a difference about this... Most of the players I jam with are over 60 and like me have started seeing their abilities diminish due to age and body related changes. But also many of us dedicated jammers are just tired of high speed stuff...

My main band does have some younger folks in it and we do press the limit sometimes, but even there we're much more concerned about how the whole band plays, sounds and works together than about speed. It takes strong clear rhythm, and not necessarily speed, to get people's feet moving.

 

[Chris Fitzgerald]

From about 2003 to 2013 I played a lot of gigs with the great pianist Harry Pickens as a regular member of his trio. During that time, he liked to play Seven Steps To Heaven at about 400 as a closer. At first I thought it was going to be the death of me, but after a while I learned to hang. It helped that the drummer was Jason Tiemann, who is now a mainstay on the NYC jazz scene. I was glad to hang on his coattails at that tempo!

 

[Ed S]

I guess at this point I AM being a tad pissy. Did anyone not understand what the OP meant when he said:

We try very hard to play mostly fast upbeat tunes to get people dancing and moving as we play a lot of festivals and private parties. I am curious as to what speed you guys play your tunes at. We play most of our songs above 140 bpm as when we dip below that speed, songs seem slow. we still play peppy songs in the 130-135 range as they need to be a little slower to get the words out. Last night we played a few songs with the bpm meter and clocked in at 150!

Was communication aided or hampered by asking:

Are you counting in two, or four?

 

[mesmithnm]

Getting back on topic...

My bluegrass band doesn't play anything over 130 bpm. I went back and took a quick listen to some Bill Monroe classics like Wheel Hoss and Monroe's Hornpipe and those recordings are right at 130 bpm. And rather than confuse the issue with all sorts of pedantic descriptions of time signatures, this is what is considered a tempo of 130 bpm in bluegrass



I think an entire evening of fiddle tunes at 145+ bpm would be a bit much. I prefer when the tempo is a little slower and the tunes swing a little.

 

[turf3]

You say that YOU count. Do you discuss rhythm with other folk in this manner? Do other folk on these forums?

Can you show me transcriptions that show such stratospheric bpms? Perhaps it occurs. I've just never heard such a thing.)

No, I don't have handy a transcription of Bird on Cherokee.

I listened to the tune. I watched the second hand of my wristwatch. I counted 14 measures in 10 seconds, which means 84 measures in 60 seconds, it's easy to hear in that recording there are four clearly defined bass notes per measure, so 4 x 84 = 336 BPM. Sure, my count might have been off +/- 5% or so.

Why does this trigger you so? Listen and count to the recording yourself.

Everyone with even a passing acquaintance with the work of Charlie Parker and his colleagues knows that they prided themselves on the ability to play and improvise at extremely fast tempi.

If you read my quote, the very next sentence after the one where I point out that yes, tempi above 300 BPM do exist and are well documented (how much better documentation than a recording of the man playing?), is the sentence where I clearly recognize that we're talkiing here about BLUEGRASS and 200 BPM for BLUEGRASS would indeed be extreme. But I'll re-defend my example recording by pointing out the thing I was responding to was your statement "I've never heard anyone in ANY forum describe a tempo above 200 BPM" (sorry, probably not an exact quote, but when you wrote "ANY" that to me takes it out of "bluegrass only" territory and opens up things like "Moto Perpetuo", "The Flight of the Bumblebee" and "Cherokee".

 

[Don Hergert]

Maybe worth mentioning, the only times that our band is REALLY concerned about keeping tempo up, is when our vocalists are running out of breath. That's a good sign that a song is going at least a little bit too slow.

Our fiddler graduated with piano and violin performance degrees and can definitely tell the difference between one tempo and another. She keeps us honest.

 

[Ed S]

At this morning's jam, after one fiddle tune - Joke on the Puppy - I asked around what bpm everyone thought it was at. The five others (fiddle, mando, 2 guitars, banjo) responded w/ variations on, "Huh?" (It was around 130-135.) Just funny that none of them even thought of bpm as a frame of reference. Then I asked if it was in 2 or 4. One guy - the fiddler - said 4. Said he'd explain the difference to me later. I told him, "Good luck!"

 

[Don Kasper]

Seven Steps To Heaven at about 400

Thank You. We'd like to close this set with a tune entitled "Six Steps To Heaven".

 

[Bruce Calin]

FWIW I tell my students: "Slower and right is better than faster and wrong."

 

[neddyrow]

FWIW I tell my students: "Slower and right is better than faster and wrong."

we follow this rule as well. We play the song slow for accurate - especially for our fiddle player to get it down and our harmonies set then we speed it up to a pace where it sounds good.

 

[neddyrow]

We played Katy Hill last night at rehearsal and it clocked in at 128 bpm. Sounded just right.

 

[sean_on_bass]

You say that YOU count. Do you discuss rhythm with other folk in this manner? Do other folk on these forums?

Absolutely. It's standard is pretty much all common forms of music in the western world. BPM = Beats Per Minute. What constitutes a beat is indicated by the time signature of a song. With that said we don't always express tempo in terms of BPM, but many do. Sometimes you just say medium, fast, slow, etc. Then in the classical like allegro which means fast. Those terms all generally refer to a specific or range of BPM. I've been in bands that can get pretty picky about the the BPM for each song and have it notated on charts to keep their tempos consistent every time they perform.

 

[sean_on_bass]

I guess at this point I AM being a tad pissy. Did anyone not understand what the OP meant when he said:



Was communication aided or hampered by asking:

I had assumed he meant double the indicated BPM because this is bluegrass. otherwise those would be kind of slow for the style.

 

[sean_on_bass]

At this morning's jam, after one fiddle tune - Joke on the Puppy - I asked around what bpm everyone thought it was at. The five others (fiddle, mando, 2 guitars, banjo) responded w/ variations on, "Huh?" (It was around 130-135.) Just funny that none of them even thought of bpm as a frame of reference. Then I asked if it was in 2 or 4. One guy - the fiddler - said 4. Said he'd explain the difference to me later. I told him, "Good luck!"

Have you all ever used a metronome? BPM's are indicated on them I'd argue a metronome is a common musical tool, no?

 

[Ed S]

Have you all ever used a metronome? BPM's are indicated on them I'd argue a metronome is a common musical tool, no?

No, that jam never pulls out a metronome, tho my band and ensemble often do. That week when we were discussing bpms, we started another song and I said, "That's right around 92." I noticed one guitarist put down his instrument and messed around with his phone. After, he grinned and said, "You were way off, Ed. It was 93!" Once in a while you get lucky!

Saw Special C yesterday, At the break I asked the bassist (Dan Eubanks - an absolute BEAST!) how quickly they played one of their quicker tunes. He said it was somewhere between 160 and 170 - they used to play it faster but were slowing down.

And the folk I've spoken with who conduct say that cut time is often counted at half speed - to avoid the conductor taking flight by waving their arms so fast and furiously.

 

[Don Hergert]

Saw Special C yesterday, At the break I asked the bassist (Dan Eubanks - an absolute BEAST!)

A really cool aside.... Special C practiced their set in our campsite space at Lake Hhavasu AZ "Bluegrass At The Beach" festival in 2022, Dan practiced using my Alcoa. One of the more exciting events of our musical life.

 

[Jason Sypher]

We used to play at 150bpms or even a little faster with no real effort back in the day. Of course no one ever thought to clock it. Here are some friends playing at Galax. This was about where we liked it on a Friday night.

 

[Ludwig]

My mechanical metronom goes from Largo (around 40 bpm) = slow up to Prestissimo (around 200 bpm) = super fast. That would be quarter node speeds and the old italian speed descriptions. In practise i use between 60 and 120 bpm. I think, I could not count out loud beats faster then 200 per minute (just 1 2 or 1234, with out any ands between). And moving your feet that fast on every beat probably would result in hurting yourself ==> no dancing on every beat possible.