Physical limits of drummers?

The549 said:
Some professionals like to play for example an 80 beat per minute song in 4/4 with the metronome at 160. Are they playing at 80 or 160?
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They are playing at 80bpm. They have set the metronome to play 1/8 notes, they didn't change the tempo of the song.

What you have to set the metronome to to get what you want to hear does not determine the tempo of the song. If that same 80bpm song was a shuffle and the guy wanted to hear triplets for a click, he would set the metronome at 240. That wouldn't make the tempo of the song 240 bpm...
 
Farview said:
They are playing at 80bpm. They have set the metronome to play 1/8 notes, they didn't change the tempo of the song.

What you have to set the metronome to to get what you want to hear does not determine the tempo of the song. If that same 80bpm song was a shuffle and the guy wanted to hear triplets for a click, he would set the metronome at 240. That wouldn't make the tempo of the song 240 bpm...
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Exactly.

A beat is a beat. Just because you set the metronome to 16th notes (for example), if you say something to your bass player like "Hold that note for 3 beats", it still means "Hold that note for 3 1/4 notes". It doesn't mean "Hold that note for 3 16th notes". A beat is a beat. What you set your metronome to is your business, but it doesn't change the tempo, or what the length (or speed) of the beat is.
 
I can play 64th notes at 200bpm with one hand.

Of course, it means I have to stick a drumstick to each finger of a hydraulically powered glove, but still....it's possible...with cybernetic enhancements.
 
Farview said:
What you have to set the metronome to to get what you want to hear does not determine the tempo of the song. If that same 80bpm song was a shuffle and the guy wanted to hear triplets for a click, he would set the metronome at 240. That wouldn't make the tempo of the song 240 bpm...
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I'll never grasp this concept.
 
Greg_L said:
Right, but I don't know if I'm playing 320 bpm or 160.
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Do you care?

I can't grasp that shit either. Sometimes I think I might just get it but then it evades me. I don't care. Sound is sound. Attributing numbers to it is kinda pointless for anything beyond talking about it unless you are doing something deliberately complex.
 
Supercreep said:
Good thing it doesn't matter 99.99999 percent of the time. In fact, it's never been an issue for me. I don't buy a metronome to do math. :)
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I hear ya. One day I posted a song and said it was 320 because I thought it was. I wasn't trying to brag or anything about how fast it is. I just thought that's what it was. I set the metronome to 160 and played it double-time. A few people went crazy telling me it was 160, but no one could tell me why. :confused:
 
Greg_L said:
I hear ya. One day I posted a song and said it was 320 because I thought it was. I wasn't trying to brag or anything about how fast it is. I just thought that's what it was. I set the metronome to 160 and played it double-time. A few people went crazy telling me it was 160, but no one could tell me why. :confused:
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You should just tell them that's just how you roll.
 
I did. I don't think they cared. They were hellbent on proving me wrong without actually proving anything. All I know is that my song fucking rocked! :D
 
Greg_L said:
Right, but I don't know if I'm playing 320 bpm or 160.
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How do you count the part?

Chances are, you aren't playing a song at 320bpm. You just need to hear 1/8 notes as a click.

This all becomes more obvious if you set up the click in a DAW. You set the tempo of the session, if the drummer needs 1/8 notes, you set the metronome to 1/8 notes. Then the click is twice as fast, but the tempo is still right.
 
Greg_L said:
I set the metronome to 160 and played it double-time.
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You just said it. you were playing double-time. You didn't change the tempo, you just were playing twice as fast within that tempo. instead of 1/4 notes on the hat, you were playing 1/8 notes on the hat, etc...

same thing with half time, half and double are in relation to the actual tempo of the piece.

The drum part doesn't really determine the actual tempo, the flow of the song does
 
Farview said:
How do you count the part?

Chances are, you aren't playing a song at 320bpm. You just need to hear 1/8 notes as a click.

This all becomes more obvious if you set up the click in a DAW. You set the tempo of the session, if the drummer needs 1/8 notes, you set the metronome to 1/8 notes. Then the click is twice as fast, but the tempo is still right.
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Farview said:
You just said it. you were playing double-time. You didn't change the tempo, you just were playing twice as fast within that tempo. instead of 1/4 notes on the hat, you were playing 1/8 notes on the hat, etc...

same thing with half time, half and double are in relation to the actual tempo of the piece.

The drum part doesn't really determine the actual tempo, the flow of the song does
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You're probably right. I have no idea. I just don't know how to "count" beats. In the song in question, I played twice as fast as the click. If it's slowly clicking along at 160 and I played twice as fast, it just seemed to me that it would be 320? That's twice as many beats, right? :confused:
 
Greg_L said:
You're probably right. I have no idea. I just don't know how to "count" beats. In the song in question, I played twice as fast as the click. If it's slowly clicking along at 160 and I played twice as fast, it just seemed to me that it would be 320? That's twice as many beats, right? :confused:
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Not really. You probably still counted it in (1,2,3,4), or clicked your sticks together, at the tempo of the tune (160bpm).
 
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