How fast can you swing the axe? Ask the axe-man sitting next to you.
Bar math can be fun, as I’ve said many a time, but especially when it’s coming from a decades-long blues man.
Imagine going to a bar to have a drink, or two, and then end up talking to a musician about how many more (notes) than that he can play a second!
Try five or maybe six.
Off to Hudson Tap, and tapping into the knowledge of a guy older than I who is a veteran bluesman, mostly — and I don’t recall if he was wearing one of those trademark brimmed hats, (think Lamont Cranston) — of a guy who has shared the stage with the likes of guitarist Buddy Guy and also blow your pipes off, Etta James.
I had always wanted to ask someone who was into speed the question, how many notes, how fast can you go, in a minute: I was told, about 500. And that was from a still sober man.
So up to eight notes a second, and that’s without transposing any notes. (Ask my niece who said she stumbled on even slowed and dumbed down, Guitar Hero, when trying Number of the Beast. Can’t blame her though. Kudos for trying and even getting the intro right. More on that below, times three.)
I didn’t know about that claim. Protestations followed from the man. Then I still really questioned it, even though I’ve tried many a time and got up to say three or four in a second, but never was really able to count notes that fast, and would have to go for a minute and then divide by 60 and even that would be dicey, after hearing many times the likes of Iron Maiden, or maybe faster yet, Megadeth. But he pulled out his iphone or such and said, here I’ll play you a clip of me on stage, playing a Twin Cities, I’m assuming show. I gotta say, both watching at the same time as listening, mind you, that I think he was more around six notes or less a second. But I could be wrong, as I might have been listening to the wrong point in a solo. And when picking with both hands? And when we’re in the rhythm section, a whole different ballgame, or concert.
But enough about numbers. Give him his due … So thusly, I consulted my expert axe-man, Dan, who didn’t really answer my question, but gave me a boatload of added info.
He was referred to me by my prime source for most things, who I had started with, and he in turn referred me instead to a one-hit wonder, whom he quickly said that in that particular song produced a flurry of notes for, maybe, less than a complete second that if extrapolated, would beat that of the blues player. It’s more about tempo, which varies, he said, and if you count well enough, to paraphrase him, you can measure the notes played. In addition, some notes blend into others, so I would ask, is it one note or two? It’s about the quality of the music, I was told, not the speed.
He referenced Crazy Train, with vocalist Ozzy Osbourne and Randy Rhoads on guitar, which made me sit up and notice, since it didn’t appear that fast to me by comparison to some. At least not sustained for a full second. Or he said, a Chinese wunderkind who plays so fast on piano, definitely a different instrument on which you can go faster with many more fingers, who tends to blur a freeze frame. Still, you’ll be able to kinda count them, he insisted.
In Ozzy’s case, at least, speak of the devil. More about that in a moment, enough even though my main music, metal, is more about the positive side of religion, Osbourne oddly included.
All this makes you wonder what Buddy Guy can do. Or the sheer number of syllables managed, while sung without stumbling, by Etta James. Or Bruce Dickenson, or even Dave Mustaine.
Those being the two main singers from the other night, on the twin-bill in Shakopee, as I gotta go into a way of comparison. The latest CD I have listened to, and it was consistent in its quickness, the second half of Peace Sells, But Who’s Buying, by Megadeth, now opening along with Anthrax for Iron Maiden. Or dying. Megadeth has Mustaine on both fast vocals and even faster guitar. I have seen the devil, and it is I. Or us. Or you. Or He?
“Peace” has superior speed, like I was foretold by many. On the grim reality of, for a start, Good Mourning/Black Friday, and followed through with a speedy “righteous riff” and their fast take on Sabbath Bloody Sabbath, and none can be saved. Then when you’re stumbling onto the devil, as sung, “the worst will come down.”
In the Jeff Beck version of It’s Superstitious, he is on guitar, Rod Stewart on vocals, and of all things, Ron Wood on the bass. (Is that the same guy as the Ronnie Wood of The Stones?) Needless to say, Megadeth in the third/fourth song of the second half of the album, durability and duration and dogged persistence, was much faster, although you can’t pick apart the technical aspect of Beck’s picking. Last song, My Last Words, picked it up again and was an even darker version of Russian Roulette.
Meanwhile, in the latest show, Maiden was said to be around 160 beats (basically the same as notes) per minute (although that is not fully extended throughout) in their last song of the encore, Wasted Years, not as fast as some they have, which was also said to make a big difference than a drop to say, 140 beats.Meanwhile, back at Dick’s with Dan, early when it was slow, there was a gentleman with hat, white brimmed, and I told him he could be a bluesman, on looks alone. He laughed more than he should of. Next to him sat a man who could be the music reactor who goes by the name Polo. At the bar was another blues guy melded into rapper, and between them a bloke, if I can use that word, who looked like T-Pain with hat.
Later, a man walked in wearing a shirt that read white lightning who could have been Stevie Ray Vaughn. He was followed not long after by someone who also looked as such, again, melded in with a bit of outlaw country. Both with black hat.
And so it goes on a Saturday night.