Why 150 BPM Sixteenth Notes Are Fast Enough

I teach my students one simple rule:

Get your sixteenth notes to 150 BPM.

Above that, it’s your own responsibility – for injuries, and for your ego.

That’s not because I “hate shred” or think fast playing is useless.
It’s because after a certain point, physics and human hearing stop working in your favour.

You’re no longer making clearer music.
You’re just creating a louder blur.

Do the math: how fast is your shred really?

Let’s translate the flex into numbers.

Sixteenth notes at 150 BPM = 10 notes per second → 10 Hz
Sixteenth notes at 180 BPM = 12 notes per second → 12 Hz
Sixteenth notes at 240 BPM = 16 notes per second → 16 Hz

On paper, that looks impressive.
On a metronome, it feels impressive.

But your ear is not a metronome.
Your ear is a pattern detector with limits.

What the ear actually hears at high speed

At around 10–12 notes per second, most people already struggle to hear clear detail:

You don’t hear every pick stroke separately.
You don’t hear micro-dynamics or subtle timing choices.
You mostly hear texture and energy, not meaning.

By the time you’re at 16 notes per second – 240 BPM in sixteenths – your ear doesn’t hear “genius” anymore.

It hears a buzz.

It stops sounding like musical phrases and starts sounding like:

a slightly out-of-control electrical noise
a pissed-off mosquito with a distortion pedal
a blurry wall of ego sound

You can convince yourself that there’s deep meaning inside that wall.
But the average listener? They just hear “fast and loud” – and then they check out.

The problem isn’t taste. It’s physics.

Here’s the part bedroom heroes hate:

The reason many people don’t like shred isn’t just “they don’t get it” or “they don’t understand real music”.

Very often, you don’t understand:

how the ear groups super-fast notes into a single texture
how dynamics and articulation disappear at extreme speed
how timing differences smaller than a few milliseconds stop being perceptible

In other words: you’re fighting math and physics.

You keep pushing the tempo higher, thinking more BPM = more emotion, more impact, more “advanced”.
But the higher you go, the less information the listener can actually decode.

Where speed still makes sense

None of this means speed is useless.

Speed is powerful when it serves:

Contrast – a short burst of shred after a slow, lyrical line
Climax – building tension and releasing it in a controlled run
Character – a specific, aggressive texture that fits the song

At around 120–150 BPM in sixteenths, you’re already in a range where:

The audience hears both speed and phrasing
You can still shape dynamics and accent certain notes
Your timing choices remain audible

Above that, every extra 10 BPM gives you a bigger ego hit…
and the listener a slightly bigger headache.

Why I tell students: 150 BPM is the line

So why do I draw a line at 150 BPM sixteenth notes?

Because if you can do that:

Your coordination is already excellent.
Your picking and fretting hands are synced.
Your muting is under control.Your time feel is likely good enough for almost any real-world gig.

From there, the return on investment drops hard:

Double the practice time for maybe 5–10 bpm more speed
Double the tension in your hands, wrist, forearm and shoulder
Double the risk of injury – for a gain most listeners won’t even notice

If you still want to chase 180, 200, 220 BPM – fine.
But at that point, it’s no longer about music.
It’s about personal records.

Injuries and the illusion of progress

Extreme speed also comes with a price your future self will pay:

Chronic tension in your wrist and forearm
Tendon irritation from sloppy warm-ups and endless speed drills
Compensating with bad posture and locked muscles

The cruel twist: many players get injured right when they feel they’re “finally getting fast”.

They confuse:

Speed gains with musical growth
Increasing BPM with increasing value

So they push harder, ignore pain, and wear their injuries like a badge of honor:

“I sacrificed my body for my art.”

No.
You sacrificed your body for a number on a metronome.

What you could be working on instead

If you’re somewhere between 120 and 150 BPM with reliable sixteenth notes, you already have enough raw speed to sound professional.

From here, your time is far better spent on:

Tone – making every note sound full, intentional and vocal
Phrasing – shaping lines like sentences, with commas and full stops
Time feel – learning to sit behind or ahead of the beat on purpose
Dynamics – making your lines breathe instead of speaking at one volume
Note choice – choosing notes that tell a story, not just fill a space

If you want a mindset reset around this, read my article on fast-food guitar vs real music. It will challenge how you think about speed, ego and actual musicianship.

The hard truth about shred

So let’s put it brutally simple.

At 150 BPM sixteenth notes, you’re already objectively fast.
Above that, every extra BPM mostly serves your ego, not the song.
Human hearing and physics put a hard ceiling on how much detail anyone can perceive at 12–16 notes per second.

The audience isn’t stupid.
They’re not “too dumb to understand shred”.

They’re just reacting honestly to what their ears tell them:

“This is a blur. I can’t feel anything anymore.”

So here’s the question you have to answer:

Are you going to keep fighting math and physics for the next 5 bpm…
or are you finally going to use the speed you already have
to play something worth hearing?

Transcript

I teach my students one simple rule:
get your sixteenth notes to 150 BPM.
Above that, it’s your own responsibility –
for injuries, and for your ego.

Why?

Do the math.
150 BPM in sixteenths is 10 notes per second – that’s 10 Hz.
At 180 BPM it’s 12 Hz.
Most people can barely perceive any real detail at that speed.

At 240 BPM in sixteenths, you’re at 16 notes per second.
Sixteen Hertz.
Your ear doesn’t hear “genius” anymore.
It sound like a pissed-off mosquito –
a blurry wall of ego noise.

Here’s the part bedroom heroes hate:
The reason why people don’t ike shred isn’t just a matter of taste or because “they don’t udnerstand music”. it’s just you who doesn’t understand math and the law of phsycics.

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