The Psychology of Extreme Rhythms

Music at the LIMIT of our perception of time

0:00 Intro
2:57 Lower Perceptual Limit (33 BPM)
4:26 Upper Perceptual Limit (100ms interonset interval)
7:00 Medium Perceptual...illusion? ("3/4")
9:29 Thoughts on time

(⌐■_■)

⦿ Adam Neely T-shirts! ⦿

⦿ SUPPORT ME ON PATREON ⦿

⦿ FOLLOW ME ON THE INTERNETS ⦿

⦿ Check out some of my music ⦿

Peace,
Adam

[ahobimo]

Summary: Sungazer wrote a song that is simultaneously "as fast as possible" and "as slow as possible", but when they played it live, the audience just split the difference and grooved at a perfectly medium pace.

[treyxaviermusic]

Adam Neely's Ministry of Silly Walks

[CassieAndAshyGaming]

Watching Shawn use a calculator to divide 600 by 6 was a moment I felt deep in my soul as a college student.

[huntergarland]

I love that adam’s band can create such musically complex songs, but not in the sense where you feel drowned in music theory

[cmyk]

*Adam Neely:* “Most people find a tempo of 100BPM to be not too fast and not too slow.”
*Rhythm gamers:* _[WALKS AGGRESSIVELY AT 340BPM]_

[UncleRJ]

"Mommy, someone is walking funny outside."
"Don't look, sweetie."

[frmcf]

"you could also think of this as just a really fast 19/16"

Oh, yeah, thanks Adam, that really helps.

[TheMister]

My daughter takes ballet. A few years ago, her class was involved in a dance that was rather slow (not quite a largo, but nearly so) for a group of seven year olds. This age group / level does this dance every year, and every year they have oodles of trouble slowing their little, performance-excited bodies down to follow the tempo. Inevitably, what ends up happening is, by about halfway through the piece, each dancer in the group ends up anywhere between one and four measures ahead. All except the one dancer who is DETERMINED to keep the beat regardless of the rest of her fellow dancers jumping ahead. Unfortunately, she ends up looking like she's fallen behind, rather than the other way around.

They're seven. It's adorable. 😍

[Bayesic]

I actually think that a group of ppl COULD feel slower pulses like that better than individuals. It’s kind of like how if you ask people to count the number of jellybeans in a jar, individuals could be really far off, but the average will be spot on most of the time

[burzumaargh]

"If you slow your walking down to a certain point, you stop feeling it as a rythm".
*Laughs in doom metal*

[ZackBellGames]

The idea of the three different psychological tempos going by simultaneously is so fucking sick. This kind of thing is EXACTLY what I follow Neely and Crowder for.

[funkwurm]

Jean-Michel Basquiat's quote "Art is how we decorate space, music is how we decorate time" seems applicable here :)

[AimeeNolte]

Adam walking at 180 BPM is my spirit animal.

[beatmasterbossy]

I like how Sungazer is more of a psychological experiment than a band really.

Feel the 19...

[devospanko]

Your uploads bring back any lost spark I've had towards music and composition... So much so that (despite local naysayers) I've decided to change careers mid-life away from hard labour and towards music. It's going to be a hard road, but it feels good to scream it into the void below Adam Neely's window. I hope the industry keeps your heart full! Thank you Adam.

[KeyOfGeebz]

And for videos like this is why I am a subscriber.

[tz]

Pro tip: make sure the 19-tuplets and the quarter notes are in the SAME METER

[Bionictotquewrench]

My kids (6, 4, and 2) tend to try and dance at whatever the fastest subdivision of the beat is. If the groove is 4/4 at 120 bpm, but then the drummer starts putting 16th notes on top of that, they will try to dance to the 16th notes. It’s pretty hilarious.

[Badministrator]

Your song Threshold feels like 3/4 at basically exactly 100 BPM to me just with an extra like... 1/5th of a beat sometimes? I honestly hadn't considered it wasn't in 3/4 as I thought you were doing some avant garde swing on a straight forward 3/4. When you play it do you feel it in 3/4 with a little more sometimes or do you actually count some divisions of 19?

I've been listening to your album a lot; probably a couple times a day since it came out. Just wanted to say thanks for creating it.

[thatmtrx]

I personally often describe Adam in my head as "funny jazzy meme bass youtube man" but it can pass us how creative, intricate and thoughtful the man can be

Thank you for yet another insight on unusual musicallity and for sharing your thoughts with us, Adam