How Fast Can We Play and Hear?

According to physiological research we can clearly distinguish individual sonic events up to twenty events per second, which is a 50 millisecond duration for each sound (event).

It is interesting to note that this lower level for distinct perception matches our physical performing ability on a musical instrument and it is analogous and quantitatively very close to the well-known persistence of the vision phenomenon.

The seeing of a continuous action in cinematography is possible at a rate of at least 20 images per second. The industry standard in motion picture is 24 images per second. Going down from that speed we start to see first a blurred and jerked motion and, down again, we start to distinguish each actual frame.

Although it is closely related to instrumental specifics, note intervals, hand positions and so on, a speed of twenty notes per second is not only our playing speed-limit but also our limit for distinguishing individual musical events. Faster than this, the events blur in a glissando texture. This particularity is often used in trills and glissandi.

Figure: According to recent research the fastest notes we can distinguish as individual elements

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In the piano literature, some examples stretching the limits for the fastest playing possible are worth mentioning here.

Figure: F. Chopin Prelude N.24 in D Minor. One of the fastest scales a pianist has to play...

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In the Chopin example, the piece is often performed at a tempo of around one second (60 BPM) for a dotted quarter note. If the ascending scale starts, as it should be, at the last eight note of the first beat we have 24 notes to play at the second beat which lasts for one second in the usual tempo of this piece.

This is practically impossible. The passage is often performed, even with the most skilled pianists by starting the scale slightly earlier at the end of the first beat and by ``holding'' a little during the second beat.

Other examples of fastest notes are not even approaching this limit.

Figure: I. Stravinsky Trois Mouvements de Pétrouchka III. La Semaine Grasse

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In the last movement of the Petrouchka suite by Stravinsky we have, at the right hand, eleven notes to be played at approximately one second time, the usual tempo of the passage is 60 BPM. This requested speed is almost identical to another passage, for the left hand, in the first movement of the same piece.

Figure: I. Stravinsky Trois Mouvements de Pétrouchka I. Danse Russe

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