Inner Peace and Lightning Speed Through Slow Practice

Lots of people talk and write about slow practice.  There are many good reasons to use it, and many reasons not to.  This week I seem to be teaching a lot on one thing in particular:

Slow practice makes you THINK differently

When I learn a piece fast, I conceive of it as fast.  I move fast, think fast and get kind of twitchy just thinking about it.

When I learn a piece slow, I conceive of it slow.  I move slow, think slow, and feel mellow in performance… no matter what the metronome might say.

Here’s a typical list of things practicing at slow tempo gives you:

1) Note Accuracy.  More time to do the right stuff.

2) Confidence in execution.  Lots of correct repetitions because it’s pretty easy.

3) Relaxed physical gesture.  Which generally means “better” tone, whatever you’re going for.

4) Well-established playing spots.  Even more consistency and tone.

5) Refined sense of time.  Mastering time and placement at many tempos develops your time sensitivity.

More than the above though, you develop a way of THINKING about a piece.  Once you master a piece with slow motions and lots of processing time, increasing the speed just causes you to simplify information within that perspective to keep up.  In other words, your brain tells you it’s “slow” when the metronome tells you it’s really fast.

In any kind of music, technique creates tone.  Slow practice allows space for you to hear your tone, and adjust your technique to what you want to hear.

Here’s my winning formula:

1) Slow Down.  50-75% marked tempo is usually good.

2) Use big gestures.  Make big tone.  Focus on your sound.  Refine your timing.

3) Speed up a little and do it again.  Allow yourself to adjust back to how you felt before.

4) Win.

Over time, you will feel calm and focused, and will be shocked to see how fast you REALLY play on recordings.