32 beats in a bar?

[riddle]

Im not a pro, but i want to ask, usually people play 16 beats as fill in lets say one bar.
if i double it its like making the stick bounce. I've asked my drum teacher and he said it must be controlled and not just letting the sticks loose and let them bounce. meaning i have to go RR LL RR LL using the fingers to get that 32 beats in a bar? and is 64 impossible for humans?

[VedranS]

you can play 32nd notes as doubles or singles, you can let the sticks bounce, you can do it with your feet, or you can headbutt the drum really fast, doesn't matter as long as you're playing 32 evenly spaced notes to a measure of 4/4 time....now, how good those 32nds sound depends on your touch on the drums. To get clean, powerful, even doubles, it is recomended to play each stroke. A push/pull, drop catch, or whatever type technique seems to be the best way according to many experienced drummers. In this, you use your wrist to make the first stroke, let the stick rebound off the head but keep your wrist down with your fingers open (touching the stick), and then you use your fingers to produce the second note by snapping the stick back into your hand.

64ths are absolutely possible, it just depends on the tempo of the song, as it's really just a way to notate music and doesn't mean anything objectively speaking as far as speed is concerned. So, what would be 16ths at quarter note=200bpm, would be 32nds at 100 bpm and would be 64ths at 50 bpm...sounds the same, just called different things. Different people have different technical facilities, so they'd be able to play 64ths at different maximum tempos...why would you ever play a 64th note?????

[Casper "DrPowerStroke" Paludan]

...why would you ever play a 64th note?????

Let go of your attitude for a second, my friend. we have all played tons of 64ths....in a ballad, doing a roll on the toms, or the cymbals? Or that fill leading into the last chorus.

There really are no stupid questions. Just getting that for myself, again.

Casper

[VedranS]

Let go of your attitude for a second, my friend. we have all played tons of 64ths....in a ballad, doing a roll on the toms, or the cymbals? Or that fill leading into the last chorus.

There really are no stupid questions. Just getting that for myself, again.

Casper

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound pretentious, of course you're right. I hadn't thought of it that way, mostly because in the band I've played with and the people I jam with the songs are never at a slow enough tempo where even the fastest roll would be 64ths based on my abilities. At most for a tight double stroke roll in context I've played it as 32nd note triplets( they sounded bad when I did it :-P ) , but of course that's just because of my limitations technically and my limited experience as far as playing songs of many different tempos. Thanks for setting me straight, peaces.

[maddrummr]

I bet Buddy Rich would put in some 64th notes on Glenn Miller's Moonlight Serenade.

[Casper "DrPowerStroke" Paludan]

Sorry, I didn't mean to sound pretentious, of course you're right. I hadn't thought of it that way, mostly because in the band I've played with and the people I jam with the songs are never at a slow enough tempo where even the fastest roll would be 64ths based on my abilities. At most for a tight double stroke roll in context I've played it as 32nd note triplets( they sounded bad when I did it :-P ) , but of course that's just because of my limitations technically and my limited experience as far as playing songs of many different tempos. Thanks for setting me straight, peaces.

No problem. I hadn't thought of it before the question was asked, so we all learned something. Yeah!
Casper

[larryace]

I didn't think you had an attitude VedranS. I thought you wrote an excellent answer to Riddles concerns. Just the mental image of a guy headbutting 64th notes on a drum makes me fall over, too funny

[Drummist222]

You guys are all way too nice to be on the internet. Next time someone disagrees with you, try this: Nuh-uh, you're fat and ugly.

Riddle,

Sounds like you're new to all of this, so I'll say it again in case it didn't make sense the first time. Assuming we're in 4/4, all 16th notes means is you play 16 notes in one measure(four for each quarter note in the time signature). If you play twice as fast, you'll play 32 notes in one measure, and each note will be a 32nd note. If the tempo of the song is very slow, 32nd notes might not be that fast, so maybe you can play 64th notes.

Keep in mind that double strokes can be any note value at any tempo(in theory, at least). For example, you could play a measure of 8th notes using alternate sticking(RLRL) and then play twice as many strokes per hand(RRLLRRLL) to get 16ths with double strokes. You want your double strokes and single strokes to both be very even and controlled, and it will take you years and years of practice and learning new techniques to get really good at this. There are 10 billion threads on here and videos on Youtube and instructional books and DVD's that deal with these techniques, but I would just focus on the basics for now. It's good that you have a drum teacher, he'll be able to tell you when to learn which techniques. Have fun!

[BrutalKid]

I'm not a professor, but I think everyone can do the 32rd note. You can set your metronome at the speed pf 60 bpm. Then first warm up, then try to play 8 strokes with one tick. You can also use a clock to do this. Just play 8 strokes in one second. It's not too difficult. It's the same speed as the 16th note in 120 bpm.
I guess problarly, you can't play 16 strokes in 1 second. Even the record holder, Mike Machine can only play around 16 strokes in 1 second. So try to use double stoke as VedranS said.

Hope that helps you.