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I am working on Chopin Nocturne 62/1 for the recital this fall and I'm having a bit of trouble increasing my speed on a couple of parts. I'm thinking most of the trouble is my fingers don't "know" the parts as well as they should, so to work on it I'm playing the two lightning-fast sections every day, 10x a day, even if I don't have time to practice much else of the piece (I average 60 minutes of practice per day, which I know is not enough, but it's all I can do right now!). I figure that will help my fingers to know those parts really well and eventually my speed will increase.

Any other tips to increase my speed? Those two sections are really the only trouble spots I'm having right now and it's otherwise coming along much faster and better than I expected!

I've been to your blog, and it's REALLY admirable what you’re doing – practicing the piano while being a busy mum!

Well, for difficult passages that I need to play fast, I usually follow C. Chang’s advice: HS really slowly many times, speed up gradually until each hand can do FASTER than what the tempo should be HT. I differ from C. Chang in that I do HT much earlier for coordination; I do HS first, then HT very slowly. Speed up with HS practicing, and finally HT at a slower tempo than the HS Maximum Tempo.

Hope it helps.

I agree with the HS practice and slow practice. Velocity really comes with control, though, so I'd also recommend practicing at various tempos. If you've hit a "speed wall," only practicing slowly and gradually increasing the speed risks just reinforcing the speed wall rather than breaking through it. Varying the speed makes your hands and your brain make finer adjustments, which can help gain control.

I hope that helps.

As far as experience goes, I'm a baby when it comes to piano and musicality in general. However, I just got done reading "The Perfect Wrong Note" and it's changed the way I see my own practice.

Instead of trying to gain control, let go. Play as fast as you can, with as much passion as you can, and pay close attention to specific measures where you make mistakes. Go back and practice those slowly and cautiously, HS if need be. Bottom line: don't let the need for speed kill your joy for the music.

Oh, and speed will come. Maybe for you, the feel of the music is slower than the tempo calls for. Allow your creative self to form an opinion about the way the music is supposed to 'feel' and to 'sound'.

Practice HS stacatto, meticulously

That's a really good book

I would suggest that you do do the slow, accurate work to really get it in your fingers. But I would also suggest that you keep trying it (perhaps once per session) at full speed to remind yourself how it feels and how far you have progressed.

Ignoring the question of whether or not playing slowly many times is good advice, Chang advocates the opposite. Here is the chapter, title and first sentence from a page of his book:

"[1.II.16] Dangers of Slow Play - Pitfalls of the Intuitive Method

Why is repetitive slow play harmful when starting a new piece?"

http://www.pianofundamentals.com/book/en/1.II.16

Chang actually said this in BOLD:

"If you know how to play fast, it is safe to play slowly, but if you don't know how to play fast, you must be careful not to learn the wrong slow playing habits or to end up wasting tremendous amounts of time."

But how would you "know how to play [that passage] fast" if you do not even know how to play it slooooooow with good control???

BTW, his next chapter is:

http://www.pianofundamentals.com/book/en/1.II.17

[1.II.17] Importance of Slow Play

Thanks for the suggestions, everyone. I have hit a speed wall, and it is so frustrating! I can play fast music to where I don't even think, my fingers just do, but I've never played this fast before, and it's a little intimidating to me (it's measures 26, 71 and 73 that are giving me trouble). I've been working with a metronome and a digital recorder to help increase my speed, but I'll also be taking a look at those chapters and I'll see if I can get my hands on _The Perfect Wrong Note_ to help give me more ideas. Stacatto is a great idea, and I'm surprised that I hadn't thought of doing that before (that's what happens when you start practicing after a 10 year hiatus). I do feel like every time I can play a teeny bit faster, so I see a little progress. Just very s l o w l y.

The above quote is another way of saying "don't learn a piece by playing it slowly". He advocates not learning a piece slowly, but learning it at full speed by taking the smallest bits you can play at full speed (HS if necessary) and mastering the whole piece at full speed as quickly as possible. Once you've mastered it full speed, then there are benefits to going back and playing it slow for other reasons. So he has a chapter on slow play, but it discusses things to learn from going back and playing a piece slowly after you know how to play it full speed.

Hi MarkL,

I know what Chang said; unfortunately, I don't buy Chang's advice hook, line and sinker. It's always best to modify it according to our needs.

The OP asked the exact opposite, "I am working on Chopin Nocturne 62/1 for the recital this fall and I'm having a bit of trouble increasing my speed on a couple of parts."

Apparently Carolyn is asking for help on those [difficult?] parts which she couldn't quite play at tempo. Yes, Chang "asked her" to try to play it at full speed, but that's exactly what she couldn't do now - specifically those "parts."

In my first post in this thread (which you questioned), I have added a clause, "I differ from C. Chang ..." Didn't I made it very clear that I DIFFER from C. Chang? That which follows the clause "I differ from C. Chang ..." are exactly those bits which I "differ" from Chang.

Is that alright with you?

carolyn,

While Chang's advice that one should be capable of playing a passage faster than ultimately necessary makes sense, you should bear in mind that the fioriture in bars 26 and 71 won't need be executed at quite the same pace as the Nocturne's tempo overall. Both have the indication of rallentando (poco rallentando in most editions for 71), and these are unquestionably places where an expressive rubato is called for.

I would begin each run with a bit of brisk bravura and then allow the momentum to taper and calm somewhat as you approach the target note (i.e., the downbeat of the next measure). Allow yourself some license here and let the music breathe!

While there's no rallentando in bar 73 (and such a slowing would be quite undesirable IMO), the technical issue seems more manageable. Here, fewer notes must fit into the duration of an eighth note played by the left hand, and each figure is self-contained rather than part of an extended scalar flourish. All have the same pattern, too. I would practice each one with varied articulations and rhythms until you can play them securely even faster than necessary.

If these three spots are the only ones you're having trouble with, I think you're doing great!

Steven

Two things come to mind to play faster, comfortably and confidently:

1) The brain needs to be thinking fast. You cannot play faster than your brain can think.

2) Minimize all movement to being effective and efficient. Keep your fingers close to the keys and under your control. Minimize attack and release, use uniformity as appropriate. (Being close to the keys does not mean tension). Taut on demand as and if needed.

You don't ever need to work on speed - You do need to work on articulation (every note is clear and distinct) and control (played at the right time with the right intensity). If you do this faithfully, speed will take care of itself - it's automatic. Another fact of human nature is that as you are able to bring up the tempo of a particular passage to where you want it, your brain, muscle, touch and sound feedback mechanism will adapt to it and you really don't want to go much above or below that tempo, otherwise it becomes a whole different passage.

Your original post made a statement about Chang's book that is incorrect, I offered a correction for accuracy. Whether or not anyone accepts Chang's advice is not an issue I raised.

I seek to disagree.

What assertions “regarding Chang” are incorrect?

The OP asked about how to speed up the “difficult” passages, NOT the whole piece. You keep using red herrings and refer to Chang's advice for practicing the WHOLE piece. It's NOT the whole piece that we are here concerned about.

For difficult passages, Chang did advocate HS practice prior to HT.

Secondly, I surely cannot find anything in his book that advises us to practice difficult passages FULL SPEED at the virginal attempts. Why don't you show me WHERE in his book he taught that? I could have missed it, or did I?

The most relevant passage I found was:

http://www.pianofundamentals.com/book/en/1.II.6

Quoting Chang, “Practicing short segments allows you to practice it dozens, even hundreds of times, in a matter of minutes. Use of these quick repetitions is the fastest way to teach your hand new motions.”

Here, “quick repetitions” does not mean playing at “full speed” repetitions, at least during initial attempts. Try playing those difficult short segments of Liszt’s Sonata or La Campanella at full speed in your first few tries; I’m sure that would be what Chang is telling us to do.

Quoting Chang, “We all know that playing faster than your technique allows is detrimental. However, the shorter a segment you choose, the faster you can practice it without ill effects because they are so much easier to play. Therefore, you can practice most of the time at or beyond final speed, which is the ideal situation because it saves so much time. In the intuitive method, you are practicing most of the time at slow speed.”

“The shorter a segment you choose, the faster you can practice it without ill effects because they are so much easier to play” does not mean playing at full speed at initial attempts. “Faster” does not mean full tempo at beginning attempts.

Practicing “most of the time at or beyond final speed” doesn’t mean practicing initially at those speed. We still have to work our way up to the required speed, and then beyond. As I see it, the main point here is: do not practice “most of the time at slow speed,” which is the “intuitive method." Initial practice for difficult passages is inevitably slow (slooooooow for very difficult passages), unless you are a prodigy, or unless Chang is asking for the impossible (which is NOT even hinted in his book). But you insist otherwise.

Remember: this concerns practicing the most difficult segments of pieces, not the whole piece.

There’s no bone in my eggs I’m afraid.

That, in a nutshell, sums up why I have difficulty playing fast!!! (funny, but true!!!)

http://www.radio86.co.uk/explore-le...-li-tiao-gutou-to-pick-bones-from-an-egg

Jīdàn lĭ tiāo gútou (鸡蛋里挑骨头) literally means "to pick bones from an egg." Jīdàn means egg, lĭ means to be inside something, tiāo means to pick and gútou means bones.

Obviously, there are no bones to be found in eggs, even Chinese eggs, so the saying refers to someone trying to bring out things that aren't there to begin with. Making mountains out of molehills, the English equivalent goes. ...