How Fast Can I Play Piano Notes?

Date: 15 Feb 1995 04:13:30 -0500
From: Catherine Franklin
Subject: (none)

Dear Dr. Math:

If I can play 6 notes on the piano in 1/96 of a minute
(according to my metronome), how fast can I play 4 notes?
 
Thank you for your help,
Catherine Franklin
fsclf@aurora.alaska.edu

Date: 15 Feb 1995 12:44:14 -0500
From: Stephen Weimar
Subject: Re: 4 notes in ? minutes

Hi Catherine,

Here are two thoughts that I hope will help you work on this problem.  I
can't quite tell from your letter whether you're trying to solve this
problem or you know the answer and wanted to see if we could figure it 
out.  Tell us if you need more help.

1. When I solve problems I first try to figure out what kind of answer I
expect to get, for instance, in this case do I expect 4 notes to happen in
less time or more time than 6?  This helps me check the answer I do get 
and see if they make sense when compared to what I expected.

2. The first thing I try to figure out is how long each note took when I
played the six, assuming for the moment that each note took the same 
amount of time.  Do you know how to figure this out?  For instance, if 3 
notes took half a minute, how long did each take?  Ten seconds or 1/6th 
of a minute, right?  So we went from 1/2 to 1/6.  Can you do that with 
the numbers you gave us to work with?

After you know how long each note takes, then you can figure out how 
long four take, right?

- steve