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I use the technique, however I wouldn't use it solely in my practice. I think it's important to use as many methods of practice as you can to reinforce your pieces. I like variety in my practice sessions, since there are a lot of ways to practice that work. Some sections of a piece work well with different types of practice or I can do well enough without much practice. Those are usually ones that are similar enough to something I know that I don't need to practice as much. The most difficult sections can take advantage of all kinds of practice.

As for the pedal, I like to practice with various levels of pedal. With no pedal I can hear the rhythm and make sure it is clear; I can see where I can best take advantage of finger legato and those types of techniques.

devils, I don't work with pedal until I've got the section almost done. When you have the pedal you tend to be spoiled a bit and use less legato or play sloppier and things like that. Without the pedal, every problem you have is just screaming "Hey, fix me!"

yeah no kidding. And it also seems that if you have everything in place and running smoothly you don't need as much pedal anyway.

Slow practice is the way to go to fix mistakes and to learn hard passages. It's also useful to maintain memorized a piece almost perfectly and definately should be included at least three or four times a week in practice sessions.
But if you can play to the indicated speed without this kind of practice, you should do so. The idea is to get to a level where your practice sessions are more performance oriented than repetitions to clean up a piece.

I agree that the pedal can become a crutch for all sorts of problems, but I find that adding the pedal later on, makes things difficult all over again. I guess when the piece is more firmly in my control, adding the pedal wouldn't be so bad.
I'm still a relative beginner trying hard to hit the intermediate level.

I make sure, even just once; I practise a fast piece at a slow tempo. (Tests memory + draws attention to detail that may have been missed in the usual tempo)

I make sure, even just once; I practise a slow piece at a fast tempo. (Tests agility + shows weak areas)


AaronSF: Love the avatar *sigh*

Slow practice works because stimulates long term muscle memory. Good habits are just as difficult to break as bad habits and slow practice allows you to get it right the first time. I also agree with those here who leave out the pedal.

For some composers(like most of
Chopin or Debussy), pedal is such an essential part of the piece that I think leaving it out during any stage of practicing makes about as much sense as "leaving out" correct rhythm or correct notes.

I'd be curious about what some of the piano teachers or professional pianists think about this approach.

I could say the same of Scriabin but I find that I can learn it much more quickly and thoroughly if I leave the pedal out until I have the dry mechanics of the piece firmly embedded in my fingers.

I think slow practice is a wonderful tool for giving your brain time to think, analyse and ensure that you are doing the right thing. (My definition of 'slow' is as fast as I can play perfectly and, of course, that threshold increases with practice time) Therefore, I always ensure that the technique I am ingraining at slow tempos will be conducive to playing at performance speed.

i confess to having a difficult time with practicing so slowly (and dryly, i.e. without any pedal) as to lose the sense of musicality. what has been working for me of late is practicing at a tempo that allows my left brain to recognize the patterns (chords, progressions, fingerings, etc.) and use just enough pedal at that typically slow tempo to suggest hope to my right brain of an eventual musical performance. this seems to be working especially well on my current project, brahms rhapsody in b minor.

I once had a teacher who maintained practicing a piece slowly made no sense at all. Everything had to be practiced at full speed right from the beginning. If any mistakes were made we had to go over it again and again until it was flawless ten times in a row.
It didn't work for me. Everything I played under this teacher is now beyond repair. The pieces just run away with me. After I left that teacher I tried to salvage some of them by going back to slow practice, but as soon as I get a bit faster, the fingers automatically get back into their old habits and are playing their own hoodled version.

I agree with everything that has been said. Especially, as was said above about the stimulation of long term muscle memory, be sure that the hand movements you are practicing slowly, are exactly the same movements that are required to play at speed. If you've ever heard of the "practice for speed first" method, that's what this gets at -determine the motions that are required of you first, then practice them, in slow motion. Some passages can be pulled off wonderfuly at slow tempos using hand motions that simply won't work at speed, in which case you've done a wonderful job of ingraining in muscle memory the wrong movements!

I love slow practice.. Slow practice with my eyes closed even at times just to really see how much I can integrate all the types of memorization.

-Paul

I cycle my small repertoire of pieces through slow practice - not too slow though - fast enough to feel some semblance of the music. Rhythmic styles such as stride change their character completely when slowed down, or at least they do for me, so I find I have to be more careful with them.

I'm sure others have noticed the following phenomenon (at least I hope so ):

I can sense my brain processing the music long after I've finished practicing. It's like I can internally "hear" the music, as if my brain were still working on it, the same passage I was just working on played slowly over and over; it's always in the background but can be focused on.

I think of it as a kind of unconscious incubation stage of the creative/learning process and when I sit back down to play again I have noticably improved. I'll experience this with pieces I've listened to or played at full speed too but I'll hear them played at tempo. Creativity/learning is a really strange, mysterious thing.

BTW, while I believe slow practice is indispensable, as I posted earlier in this thread, I agree with the need to consider performance tempo (the ultimate goal) therein and the need to practice fast as well as slow when one is technically able to (same for pedal).

I remember praticing once when I was younger and my Dad was listening to me rip off a peice I thought I knew quite well. He said that's great but can you play is super slow? Well I tried and could get through 3 bars without messing up. That convinced me I didn't know it all that well.

Another method a teacher of mine used to get me to do was to play parts of peices and especially technique in a dotted notation format. i.e. dot every second note, very helpful as well.

Even though I play jazz, I still work on some classical repetoire as occasionally clients want a mix (Right now doing Mozart's C Minor Fantasie K475 - what a fun piece).

Practise slow works for both classical and jazz I've found. I think a lot of it comes from the "Effortless Mastery" approach that Kenny Werner advocates. Playing should be as effortless as just dropping your hand on the piano. No tried effort. Focused awareness yes. (i'm beginning to sound like Yoda - there is no try...). Slow practise is an extension of that concept. Even if you are advanced, you play passages so slowly so that they are as simple as the simplest minuet you played decades ago. The motor program is trained so the sequence of notes is not memorized but internalized. That way, your attention can be directed towards the music, not the mechanics.

I also find slow practice to be beneficial, both technically, and in terms of my enjoyment of the process. I don't agree with the attitude that such practice is hard work or boring - to me it's a form of meditation, a way of becoming more involved with all aspects of the music making process. It's difficult to explain - but I like the way it almost forces me to 'be in the moment' rather than rushing ahead to accomplish some future goal, like completing the piece. Does that make sense? And it certainly helps me to appreciate different aspects of the music, such as harmonies that might otherwise get lost at a faster pace.

But I don't do all of my practice this way - I tend to focus it on the pieces I want to learn properly, rather than those that I just like playing through casually. And sometimes, when I've got a solid grasp of a piece, I like to practice much faster then the performance tempo, which then seem easy by comparison.

I think that the best way to learn is the way that divides you from the sheets...and let you feel what you are playing.
The first period is important in order to learn mechanically the piece and to see what you have to do in some hard points. And you have to do this slowly if you want to see it precisely.
After that there is the second period in which you have to learn "how to feel" what your hands have learnt, and in this period you will decide also what speed is more suitable...

It is a simple fact: HASTE MAKES WASTE! Hands separate, slow practice that includes, expression, technique and concentration will GET YOU TO THE END RESULTS faster than rapid sloppy reading as well as slow practice OPENS areas of beauty and insights into a great piece of music that fast playing does not allow. Enjoy the PROCESS of getting there! Slow is best.