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This video purportedly shows a guitar player, Vahid Iran Shahi, playing the Flight of the Bumblebee at 350 bpm.

As an experienced guitar player, it seems humanly impossible to me to play this fast:

In the background, there's a second hand implying the video is not accelerated, though. Are there any signs of this being a fake?

Oddthinking
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aimfeld
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  • Okay, there are even faster videos out there: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XG4GDIqSf14. Seems even more impossible... – aimfeld Oct 28 '13 at 12:15
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    Between the two (600 bpm): http://recordsetter.com/world-record/guitar-player/7285?autoplay=true#contentsection – Oddthinking Oct 28 '13 at 12:40
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    Guiness world record (January 2012) is 620 bpm: [Dr Hot Licks sees in the New Year in Hong Kong with new fastest guitar-playing record](http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/news/2012/1/dr-hot-licks-sees-in-the-new-year-in-hong-kong-with-new-fastest-guitar-playing-record/) – ChrisW Oct 28 '13 at 13:27
  • ChrisW's link should be the answer, we have a credible source saying that they have tested and recorded someone played at a much faster speed (almost x2), this shows that this is possible, and since there are video footage of the person playing so fast, this shows that it's totally believable. – SIMEL Oct 28 '13 at 14:52
  • But the claim is that *this* guy did it. –  Oct 28 '13 at 14:53
  • @Articuno, You have footage of the guy doing it. – SIMEL Oct 28 '13 at 14:54
  • The question is whether or not the footage has been faked. (See the last sentence in the question.) –  Oct 28 '13 at 14:56
  • So should that be the headline question then? – Rory Alsop Oct 28 '13 at 16:18
  • The world record with an electric guitar seems to be at an incredible 1300 BPM: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VHIxxH7_g9U – aimfeld Oct 28 '13 at 20:31
  • Or am I wrong and it's even 1500 BPM? This just doesn't seem to be right... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c61wy9-BRJQ – aimfeld Oct 28 '13 at 20:56
  • This video suggests that the 1500 BPM may have been faked: http://recordsetter.com/submit/review?pend=8f3d4b38-c25a-4c59-b5ba-ae6da541a9eb – aimfeld Oct 28 '13 at 21:13
  • [Guinness have decided to "rest" this category](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfeTAz2b-9o), while they work out better protocols. – Oddthinking Nov 24 '13 at 23:29

1 Answers1

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The guitarist is Vahid Iran Shahi (or Iranshahi).

He self-describes as the Fastest And Technical Spanish guitarist In The World.

I could find no evidence regarding the reliability of this video and no independent source verifying his claims of being the fastest Spanish guitarist or the specific speeds at which he played in the video.

Others have been verified to play faster than he has claimed in the video, so that should remove your argument from incredulity:

However, without additional evidence, I believe the question of whether this is an unaltered video of Vahid Iranshahi playing at 350bpm is unanswerable at the moment.

  • @IlyaMelamed, I switched to Iranshahi because of his [facebook page](https://www.facebook.com/vahid.iranshahi), but you're right, his youtube page uses two words.. not sure which to use. –  Oct 28 '13 at 18:36