I believe the overwhelming majority of people embrace the notion that slow practice is more effective than fast?

While I can see the merits from slow perspective, what about the fast perspective?

Sight reading comes to mind. Lets say you're a mediocre to bad sight reader and could play something at a 20 to 40% error rate (at tempo) for a piece that you've never seen before. To reduce the amount of errors, "why" shouldn't you practice it fast, with the theory that that speed will train you to recognize your mistakes faster? Is it because you're going so fast, you don't realize you've actually made one (or many)? If so, a recording, along with a simultaneous analytic review of the sheet music afterwards seems like it would address that issue.

Someone who wants to be a world-class sprinter, doesn't practice walking.

Anyway, I'd love to hear your idea, theories, hairs on the back of your neck reasons or empiral evidence that slow IS, in fact, better than fast, when it comes to the most effective ways to learn (sight reading, in my example).

To me, the "whys" of why we do things the way we do help me to learn (as I'm sure they do others).

Thanks in advance for your input.

I look at it like engraving a piece of wood. If you run the tool haphazardly enough times on the face of the wood its going to retain those mistakes. Better to go slow and make sure you engrave it the right way the first time. Then the next / faster engraves will be easy because you have a correct map to follow from the initial engraving.

It depends.
Sometimes it is and sometimes it isn't.

I think it's a mistake if anyone says it's absolutely one way or the other.

I do mostly slow practice, but from time to time fast practice is also correct.

For example, if there's a 3-measure passage that is difficult, I will take it out and isolate the difficult hand (usually the R.H.) and use a metronome to practice slowly. Slow practice ensures correct notes and fingering. Gradually, I'd add speed, and, eventually, I will be practicing these three measures at full speed _and_ beyond.

The purpose of practicing beyond the actual speed is to ensure absolute note and fingering security, as well as forming longer phrases and melodic lines. The hand finds bigger gestures and motions to remember. For presto passages, your brain doesn't think note-note-note, fingering-fingering-fingering. The brain looks for bigger shapes and motions. Rather than individual notes, the brain forms bigger "groupings" of notes.

Thus, fast practice is helpful and correct, when done correctly.

I don't have emperical data to give you, but my teacher years ago used to say, "If you can't play it slow, you can't play it fast". ("can't" in the sense of, are unable to, not in the sense of giving me permission). I do believe there is some element of truth to that, as I find when I'm somewhere in the middle of the learning process, it is often possible to "fudge" and zip your way thru things quickly, and slow performance reveals errors, awkward fingerings, left-out notes, or ?? which shows there's still learning to do! Most of the time, these days, I like to get one pretty good stab at tempo to just see that it "can" be done and what it will feel like (also reveals fingering that maybe works slowly but not as well quickly) and then settle down to either slow practice or practice with varied rhythms (2 eighths become a dotted eighth+a sixteenth, for example) and try again a few days later.

I was made aware of this a few years ago: Think of time as a thing that can be filled, and not just a moment that passes. Supposing you take a full second or more to go from one note to another. Supposing that in that time you pay attention to how you will go from the one to the other, how you will linger or let go of the note, whether you are moving efficiently, etc. and take care of these things. Later when you play quickly you will not have time to pay attention to these things, but they will still be there for you. If, however, you play slowly, are bored by playing slowly, and let your mind wander, it is of no benefit. That is roughly what I learned and it seems to be true.

Hi Akira,

Pianists hear with their hands and fingers.

Playing a piece faster does not automatically help you recognize your mistakes faster. It just means you are practicing playing incorrect notes faster, if there were any.

Speed is only a part of what makes a piano piece complete and what makes a piano player complete.

Playing notes accurately might be more important, with the main considerations being finger control, dynamics, the composer's intention (notation), among others. For example, Pianissimo to Forte has little to do with speed.

Sight-reading is a skill, like any other. Speed comes with fluency and practice. The physical/technical/sensory components of playing require maturing and have to be combined with what happens during sight-reading.

That is why, generally, scales, chords, arpeggios, etc., are practiced separately as well from sight-reading because those address the physical components involved in playing.

Some pieces need to be played slowly, as the fingering might not come naturally at all to some players, and as well they might be written to be played slowly. We play like we practice, so we should practice like we play.

By the way, not all sprinters practice by running full-speed every time they run, either.

At least that is my experience as an ex full-time Strength and Conditioning Coach, and as a near intermediate piano player/learner.

Glen

Yes -- and you gave great examples.
I also agree that the other posts here give great answers on what's good about slow practice.

One thing you said has another side to it, IMO: "Slow practice ensures correct notes and fingering." I think "fingering" is actually a big reason to make sure not to do too much slow practice, at least until you see that it really works at the actual tempo, because it might turn out to be a lousy fingering at full speed. I've sometimes gotten completely bollixed for a while on passages because of this: I had a fingering that worked great when I was playing slow and so I didn't think about the fingering any more, but I just couldn't play the passage in tempo. I just tried harder and harder for a while, but couldn't. When I finally realized the issue and adjusted the fingering, it was fine.

Ah but at an early age sprinters do practice their technique (yes there is technique to sprinting). Running at slower than max speed you can work on things like your hand position, upper body position, aspects of your stride, etc. Not to mention working on things like coming out of the blocks (which have their own technique). Similar to what others have mentioned, sprinters also practice "above tempo" as well, a simple way to do this is to run down hill (just make sure you have a lot of space and choose a nice hill with soft grass for those inevitable wipeouts ).

So no, generally walking is not utilized as a way of training, that's going a bit too far. But practice at a pace that slower than maximum is common. AAMOF, it's hard to think of many activities that don't have "below tempo" practice as a normal part of their daily routine (e.g. walking through plays in football and basketball, working on your stroke in racquet sports, etc).

Very well said and I like the analogy.

???

Mistakes happen because of unclear directions from our brains to our hands. Slow practice allows enough thinking time to send correct messages.

I also find it helps me to catch what I don't know, but thought I did, so I can know it. Say you are fumbling in various spots around the same measure repeatedly. You slow down and discover that you really have no clear idea about fingering in that area, or how to do the gymnastics to get there, which explains the perpetual fumble. Once you clarify whatever it is, practice it slowly, the fumble disappears. Then you can get at those "unclear directions".

I think the dichotomy is a little false....

"Slow" practice is like putting something under the microscope, or trying to see something far away through a telescope. You are changing your perspective so you can get a better understanding, and there are some things that the human eye just can't catch without magnification. The things you work on in this microscopic environment are different to the things you work on when everything is to scale.

"Fast" practice can show you other kinds of things - it can give you a macro-view that the slow practice doesn't allow. But if you can't do the things that are accomplished through "slow" practice you won't have the skill or understanding to then work at the macro level.

Is what I wrote yesterday in a previous post similar?


I appreciate your explanation of the "fast" practice because this is new and especially helpful. Thank you.

But they learn to walk before they learn to run.

Becuase you will make even more mistakes. Besides, recognizing your mistakes isn't what one has to learn in sightreading. Most people don't have trouble hearing a mistake.

I like your comments here very much!

My husband is a serious woodworker and methodical in every thing he does in the shop as well as in his professional career from which he retired. Unfortunately, one day in the shop, something distracted him, a bright light reflection from the sun shining on a passing car. You guessed it, a freak accident - severe injury - micro surgery on his left hand, loss of a finger, injury and limitations to 2 other fingers.

His father used to tell the joke: "I cut the wood twice and it's still too short."

My comments about the value of slow practice would be to give yourself time to think to the finger impulse, hold the duration, and then to hear what you played as to it's correctness and quality of sound.

Besides, hands of beginner students are not completely built yet, the muscles and fingers are new to piano playing and the digits get confused regardless that you might be thinking correctly but the message has gone slightly astray and does not process what you were thinking. Digit confusion is a real, but usually temporary thing. The more clearly you think in your conscious thought, the better your results.

In playing fast, those muscles and fingers are going to fumble, misfire, and you will have trouble controlling them.

Everything in the learning process is best with clear intentions, effort toward accuracy and control.

Do slow first and the speed comes later as a gift.

Hasty has penalities.

Betty Patnude

I noticed Inlandings comment, "Pianists hear with their hands and fingers."

I don't think that is something that happens early on - the "hearing with our hands and fingers" which is a way of saying "being accountable for catching mistakes quickly and knowing what is wrong and how to fix it" comes only through a great amount of experience and effort to evaluate one's playing.

It's a "feel" through tactile sense, but it's also the "ears" hearing the sounds as correct or incorrect.

I find in beginning children and adults, they are so busy thinking and doing that they don't hear the music they are playing. Listening has to be encouraged, but it is one of the last things put into place in beginning lessons - the other processes are just taking up all the brain space possible.

When the music gets easier to read the student gets more comfortable and isn't being so conscious of what he's doing, the sounds become part of the mix of playing.

I've sometimes asked a student if they already had known the song before playing it for the first time, and the "I don't know I didn't hear it" has been expressed to me. So I ask them to play the first line or two again and to listen to the results they are getting...and they can say, yes or no about the hearing it before.

For someone will a lot of experience, the hearing is a given thing, and then the explanations of why a mistake was made is then the next process to be determined.

With high levels of musicianship and experience, it's possible to look at a new piece of music and to move the fingers to react to the music, and to hear the music sounding in one's head. This is "to audiate" the music without the instrument being played. It can be done either with hands, or without hands.

It's like an "awakening".

Betty Patnude

It may mean that to you, but I doubt many people and even perhaps the OP meant it that way. Better to say what one means in a clear way IMO. I certainly have the experience to do what you said it meant, but I would never express it that way.

Is what I wrote yesterday in a previous post similar?


Yes, I do think that your post is talking about the same differences between 'fast' and 'slow' practice! But on reading the thread this far it did seem to me that most responses believed that one simply plays slowly to start with, and then gradually speeds up as the elements of a piece are mastered.

Applying a "move from slow to fast" approach is broadly speaking very sensible. But in many instances this slow to fast practice strategy is only required because of reading challenges: if the student already knows how the music sounds, or if a teacher has taught the student the gestures required in the piece, or if the student can easily see what's going on in the score, then the microscopic approach is of no specific technical benefit.

So by thinking of slow practice as a means of taking a close-up look at the music (rather than what we do for the first few weeks) we stop believing that there is pre-determined sequence of practice tasks that is applicable to each and every new piece of music we are seeking to master.

And we start to approach each piece asking "how do I best approach the challenges I find in this new piece of music?"

Thank you, Elissa.

One of my favorite books is "The Art of Practicing" by Madeline Bruser. Here's a quote on slow practice:
"I read an interesting account by the pianist and composer Abram Chasins of how Rachmaninoff practiced. Chasins was approaching the house where Rachmaninoff was practicing and heard the legendary pianist playing so slowly that he couldn't tell what the piece was. He stood outside the front door for quite a while and finally realized it was the Chopin etude in double thirds, which is supposed to go like the wind. He timed the music on his watch and found that Rachmaninoff was playing one bar every twenty seconds-- a little more than one note per second. We don't know why Rachmaninoff was practicing so slowly. But it's interesting that such a great virtuoso took so much time with each note".

i think it is particularly helpful for focusing on economy of motion

Yes, I agree with you. When I'm playing through a piece up to tempo and the fingering is not working, going back and working through it very slowly does expose and help with the fingering issue and how much motion to use.

The same reason why the Tortoise beat the Hare

Slow and steady wins the race

You've gotta walk before you can run

Bad habits die hard


Sorry about the idioms, couldn't resist lol...I agree with these responses. Numbers never lie and this is no exception. Increasing the rate of any given task will increase the likely-hood of an error occurring (car accidents). Therefore a decreased rate will minimize the total amount errors made over a period of time but avoiding them altogether is infallible.

Its easier to learn than it is to un-learn and its counterproductive to practice fast and it will come back to haunt you believe me. My ascending scales are not as fluid as they used to be because my girlfriend and I have "scale wars" to solve petty things like taking out the dog lol.

..... my girlfriend and I have "scale wars" to solve petty things like taking out the dog lol. [/quote]

OK. Intriguing. How does one engage in a "scale war"???!

It isn't necessarily better than fast practice. In many cases though, it's easier, just because it's easier to do many things slowly than quickly. Let's say you're fighting someone. It's easier to beat them if they're moving in slo-mo. It gets more difficult as their speed increases.

What is that? How do you wage 'scale war'? Who wins? How do you win? Tell




That is spot on with my newbie experience, well put, keystring. Fumbling only goes away when you have enough time during play to realize where or how it is going wrong.

My teacher says that playing slow is playing fast, meaning do one and you can do the other better. I also try to speed play now and then to see if I can do it, but only for one or two times, then I slow down again and keep practicing in a more easy to control manner.