How fast is "too fast to be useful?"

[asb]

This is kind of interesting:


So, how fast is too fast to be useful?
Though some of us have slowed down in our old age, we certainly have played stupid fast stuff in the past.

I've found "fast" guitar parts framed in slow music can sound either slow or fast.
And 'fast" guitar parts framed in fast music sound less fast in some cases.

When you play fast?  How do you could things out (he talks about musicians internal time) and an esoteric term called the interonset interval.

Your thoughts?

[Infinite Ego]

I stopped thinking about it years ago and just play. It is what it is. When the Bofatron stuff started out I was pretty self-conscious about it but now why bother justifying anything .... it's supposed to be art and art knows no boundaries. If there are boundaries then it's not art, just commodity and market determinations.

[asb]

True. Art is ... well what it wants to be sometimes. You'll notice on my latest record that there is the least amount of speedy guitar stuff than on any previous record and some songs had no guitar solos at all.

There's some widdly stuff but it's not in every song like some previous projects.

And in fact, there was a track I pulled that had the fastest most ridiculous guitar line I ever recorded since it didn't fit this particular project. That's going somewhere else.

That being said - this video made some commentary regarding guitar players who fake playing fast. Crazy.

[sonicdeviant]

The fast bits for me are mostly filler these days; just little bursts. And sometimes those really aren't that fast--just fast in comparison to other phrases around it.

If I'm playing fast it's usually something I've played fast before, so it doesn't take a lot of thought. When I'm improvising something melodic then it requires more presence and concentration.

I agree on what's too fast. It's fast enough when the artist says so.

[Infinite Ego]

when I get going in warp speed I don't think of notes but geometric shapes that I can morph in diff. ways. and melt one into the other