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Take a look at this clip. Why is practicing tortuosly slow necessary?


http://youtube.com/watch?v=Xx9oSDpb1Vc

Practicing slow gives you plenty of time to make sure you stay completely relaxed and hit all the notes. It also allows you to train your hands to move correctly and efficiently, so when you play faster your hands will move that way by instinct. It gives plenty of time to actually think about details of what you're doing, because you don't have nearly as much time when you're playing faster.

Practicing slow really helps me with the pieces I'm polishing, but it is kind of boring too. I have a bad habit in practicing too fast sometimes.

Looks to me from the YouTube clip that the young lady showed us how to practice slow so slowly that she ran out of tape on her video camera.

Tomasino

And don't forget to clip your finger nails before practicing.

It's so sad - her little introductory clip goes off the rails! And, messed up as it is, she uses it to introduce her other little "lessons", too. Or at least the one I watched - I don't think I am in need of too much of her instruction, so didn't check out any more.

But to the question - I don't know why extremely slow practice works, but it does. BUT, it doesn't work so well if you aren't mindful and paying attention when you do it; at least not for me. Just a couple of days ago I proved to myself once again that it does work, when I did some very slow practice on a section of a piece that had some problems that just didn't want to get fixed and had been bugging me for a long time. The next day, almost magically, that spot was much much better.

But I think it helps a piece even if there aren't any particular problems. Somehow, it is like it sinks the music deeper into your brain and nervous system. I'm not disciplined enough to do it a whole lot, but it never seems a waste of time when I do.

I used to know a concert pianist who spent most of his practice time doing very slow work, and he spent relatively little time working on a piece at the speed at which it would be performed.

I keep hearing from my instructor and another player that this is truly the key to success. There is also another expression I've picked up: control the events! That what we get when we slow down. As I have spent most of my piano time playing up to speed as fast as possible it is no wonder that I have never mastered a piece. So I am now resolved to play everything slowly until I can play it correctly...I know for sure that impatient and speedy doesn't work! This forum is pretty cool! I've never had anyone to discuss the piano with except my instructors! Thanks! Camille

The slow practice of music that is meant to be played fast should be done with caution and in moderation. The physical processes are different e.g. To play an arpeggio slowly you have to make large lateral movements of the wrist and forearm as the thumb passes under the hand. At a fast pace, this movemnt isn't made at all!!
Fingerings, movements and types of touch that are best for a slow pace will often be useless when the same notes have to be played much faster.
Feeling the right tempo for a piece is one of the most important aspects of playing it well. Compare recordings of any piece by different artists and it will be clear that even slight differences in tempo can have an enormous impact on the character and mood of the piece.
Of course slow practice is helpful for learning notes, paying attention to detail, relaxation and control and therefore is often necessary. But it is not a solution to everything and too much (just like too little) can hold back progress.
My professor at the Royal College of Music in London was opposed to any slow practice of fast music as are many renowned pianists, notably Alfred Brendel. Experience has taught me that they are as wrong as those who advocate slow practice as an answer to everything!

Well I have looked at the video and I did not find her "torturously slow", I practice much slower at the beginning..

The reason it works to me is pretty simple: we play piano because of the voluntary and involuntary signals which our brain and nervous system send to our hands.
The more you do something slowly, completely focusing on what you are doing, the faster your brain "registers" what he has to do; the repeated practice of this then becomes ingrained and works automatically, because the input was given correctly in the first place.

A very slow movement impresses on your brain the correct fingering, the correct keys and the correct finger position much better than to try to play at speed as soon as possible would ever achieve. The adjustments which will be necessary afterwards (some fingering might not really work at speed, or another hand position on the key might be preferable) will then be mase singularly and some would probably have become necessary anyway.

When I have to move my fingers very fast on the keyboard I do not want them to frantically look for the right piece of keyboard; I want them to go surele and automatically and with precision to the right spot, which my finger know because they have learned to hit that key correctly from very slow, maintaining that correctness when the speed slowly increases.

I am now working on "Le Onde", and this method seems to me far more efficient than to try to play at speed as soon as possible, because I notice that with increasing speed I do not lose precision, and I am ready to have this speed building very slow for the beauty and satisfaction to see that when the speed builds, it builds "right"...

How great to get advice from a student at the Royal College in London...thank you! You make perfect sense. Camille

Importance of slow play
http://www.pianofundamentals.com/book/en/1.II.17

An explanation of PPI described in above link
http://www.pianofundamentals.com/book/en/1.II.15

This is not a very good advert for slow practice. Where are her dynamics? Phrasing? The point of slow practice is to give the brain time to bring out all the expressive elements and get the right notes.

The tortuous aspect is interesting. Those that find it so need to ask - What is being tortured? The body or the mind?

she didn't even get to that tortuosly slow tempo, not that slow actually. btw, i don't even think she played it that well herself...

I found this forum that has slow practice tips and other technique tips.

http://techniquetips.com/Piano%20Technique%20Forum.htm

My piano teachers always advocated slow practice. My first teacher went as far as having me play everything expressionless and very firmly (almost tensly) to drive the notes into the brain. Once the piece becomes part of the finger as she'd say, it was time to speed it up and work on the dynamics and other aspects of the music.

This method works pretty well, but I find that the dynamics are lost if they're not looked into at the beginning. So instead of blasting through everything at the same dynamic, I work in the dynamics at the same time as the slow methodical playing which focuses on fingering, hand position, and accuracy. Once these aspects are comfortable, I then work on the tempo and bring the piece up to a tempo that is both accurate and comfortable for me to play at the same time.

John

I agree with slow practice, but often I use it for difficult passages. Why go through a part of the piece that you can play well at tempo? That helps keep it from being "tedious". The only time I would play an entire piece slowly is when I'm working on increasing the tempo with a metronome, that way the whole piece is consistent.

tortuosly slow is a bit vague. practise a passage as fast as you can, but not as fast as you cant.

By playing someting "tortuously slow", you can focus on the control of every note very carefully. One of my teachers had me work on a Mozart sonata. Even though I knew the piece well, having worked on it years before, he had me go through it extremely slow, and I mean snails move faster. At first my mind was wandering all over the place, and my urge was to play it fast, but he had me stick with it at the extremely slow tempo.

What did I get out of it? The ability to control the tone as carefully as I wanted no matter how quickly I played the piece afterwards. You see when I was working extremely slow, I focused on finger control and hand positions. I agree that fingerings do change from slow tempos to fast ones, but if you think out fingering carefully in many cases what you come up with first is usually the best.

So in the end, the piece was something to be proud of. I didn't have flailing panic-fingers that couldn't find their place because they weren't well rehearsed. The playing was not only very musical because I focused on the tone and details carefully, it was also extremely accurate because my fingers and mind weren't second guessing anything because the vague movements hadn't been worked out yet.

This is something to think about if you're interested in going into music for a living. There's a lot of really a lot more slow work than you'd think.

John

I hope you have read Abram Chasin's Speaking of Pianists, the passage describing his introduction to Rachmaninoff.

When I was learning that piece, I practiced it at one note per beat on 60. I think she is going considerably faster than that.


Colin Thomson

After seeing so many posts on practicing slow, Ive really been trying to incorporate that into my practice as well. I play too fast when I practice. But really, the slower you practice, the faster you'll be able to play. Slow practice really "locks" the notes in your fingers. Once you can play it without thinking about it at a slow pace, you can easily and graudually increase the tempo.

what i meant was if you can play every note perfectly at the speed your practising, (of course that means complete focus) then that speed is slow enough for you.

It depends on what else you want to put "into" that note and the movement from note to note, so that it is still there when you play fast.

Wow I tried playing as slow as the metronome could go on my clavinova with a piece I fairly know.
This isn't so easy at first to do. I was playing ahead of the beat sometimes.
I think I will begin doing this more often.

Peter

I find practising with a metronome at a slow tempo is very useful, particularly for fast passages, or passages where I tend to rush. I start off with the metronome set at a tempo which feels too slow, and force myself to play at this speed without rushing - this ensures that you are controlling your fingers rather than them rushing away over the notes.

Once I can play it perfectly at that tempo then I take the metronome up one notch and do it all again, until eventually I'm at full speed.

I really find this invaluable as it means you can't just fudge over anything - it all has to be note perfect.

Sooner or later you may run into something like the slow movement of the Ghost Trio, where you will need to be able to play slow.

personally I'm not a fan of really slow practice - but that's probably because my instincts about finding a fingering that will work at performance tempo is not highly developed yet and I dislike having to relearn fingerings - especially ones with very subtle differences.

I think this is an inevitable problem. However, slow practice doesn't mean you can't play quickly too. I will often do slow practice just in sections, and then play the whole thing at tempo. That way you get an idea of how to shape the entire piece together, in addition to the solid foundation slow practice gives you. It's not an "either/or" thing.

This is exactly what I have found as well, and is really helpful with difficult passages. This is also something my teachers were trying to show me, but it didn't dawn on me at the time. It's funny how somethings take a long time to break through the skull. Anyway, I spend a lot of time going at things slowly.

If you want to keep the time steady without using a metronome, subdivide the beats so that 1/4-note equals two full beats.

This is especially helpful with slow movements where it is critical to keep things at a slow steady pace.

John

Actually, there are two tempos for slow practising:

The slower one I call "very slow". It is a tempo without any beat, just playing the notes of a small section in the proper order. You may take all the time you need to figure out what to play next before you play it (this method is horrible on organs since the notes never fade away). This is great for memorising difficult parts and learning to play them at all. Once you can do that well, this method has no purpose for the very section anymore.

The faster one I call "moving". it is the fastest tempo that you can play while still feeling comfortable and making no mistakes. Speed up as you can, but slow down when you feel stress or make mistakes, play it again slower a couple of times and let it rest until the next day. This method is great for any part that you can't play well yet. It also helps a lot when you have messed too much with a piece and it seems to fall apart.

Of course there is no escape to playing fast when the original tempo is close to your abilities. Also keep in mind that with the tempo some movements need to be changed. But by speeding up from a slow tempo you get there anyway, and quickly!

But the essential idea of practising slowly is to do it in small chunks that fit into your memory. If you just play the whole piece slowly over and over, it will take forever. But if done correctly, this is the fastest and most reliable method I know to learn a new piece.

Has anyone read "Playing The Piano For Pleasure" by Charles Cooke. It is a fun read and also inciteful for beginners especially. The book is excellently written and amusing. It was published in 1941, which makes some it a little dated. However, he was a writer for the New Yorker, (I think), and thus had many connections with great pianists of the day, such as Horowitz. He stresses the importance of slow playing especially in areas he refers to as "fractures", which are difficult areas in a piece.

If this is a popular book that everyone has read, I apologize as I am a beginner/intermediate student.

Steve

John, I do echo your comments on playing slow. Nevertheless, all of the tips we're giving on slow playing are all good except it can become very boring, fatiguing, and hair pulling while playing tortuously slow. Frequent breaks are necessary. I tend to become impatient a lot. Playing the piece rubato is good advice.

Maybe a few of us see a 16th or 32nd note and are urged to play it very fast. Even when playing a 16th or 8th slowly there's the temptation to play the notes uptempo. Like John said see the 1/4 notes as 1/2 notes. In my book I see all notes as 1/2 or whole notes on hands seperate. Then like a great Micheangelo or Da Vinci painting it all crystalizes after many days. Maybe within hours for the more fluent and gifted piants.

You need to explore who is pulling their hair out - the body or the mind?

If you try to play slowly with an empty mind, waiting for the time to pass, it is a hair pulling experience. If you are trying to put things into the notes, and drawing things out of the notes to put into them, then it can't be slow enough.