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Post by creamburmese on Oct 30, 2017 16:11:24 GMT
I am on a mission to improve my guitar playing and to be able to actually play for someone other than myself (preferably one or more Homo sapiens) without falling apart. So this week I got instructions to play a piece that's meant to be fast (a classical guitar study) slowly. Ok you say, you've heard that before. But what I mean is SUPER-slowly - so slow the tune is kinda missing and you can concentrate on each note... in my case slowing down a piece that I could realistically hope to play at 110-120 to (gulp) 30. What I found is that a) I actually can't remember it very well when going really slowly - something about interrupting the train of thought (or at least muscle memory), b) I find out all kinds of things (mostly negative things) about how I'm trying to play it, and c) trying to keep the tempo down is really really hard! Oh and did I mention this had to be done cold, when first picking up the guitar? Anyway, this week I embarked upon the project of playing it like this every time I pick up the guitar, and although the first attempt was an out-and-out disaster, things have gradually improved day by day. I had one furtive attempt to pick up the speed again (I'm supposed to be only playing it slowly) and was amazed to find that I could actually play it faster than before with fewer mistakes even though I didn't practice it at even normal speed in the meantime. Has anyone else tried this? Julie
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ocarolan
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Post by ocarolan on Oct 30, 2017 17:12:28 GMT
Dave White sent me a recording of a mandolin piece for me to learn so we could duet it at HB8. Fiendishly fast!!! Couldn't hope to play that!
I tabbed it out and then started by slowing the piece down to 75% speed - after a while I could play it OK.
I then increased the speed to 80% of the original and kept at it until I could play it.
And so on, 5% at a time hoping I'd get to the original speed. Not quite - 90% was my limit, and try as I might, I just couldn't get to 95%!
However, we still played the piece, and you can find it in the HB8 videos somewhere - full of mistakes, but many of them aren't too noticable....
Keith
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Post by martinrowe on Oct 30, 2017 17:53:05 GMT
I'm just starting on this way of practising. I've heard that the bass player Edgar Meyer is a great advocate of this. I haven't tried super slow yet. I'd be interested in hearing more as you progress. The keenness to improve can lead to impatience becoming the enemy I suppose - would that be right? Knowing why always helps with me.
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Riverman
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Post by Riverman on Oct 30, 2017 18:09:17 GMT
When I was starting out I heard this advice a lot...and completely ignored it. More fool me, because trying to play a piece at a speed that's faster than you can accurately play the most difficult section is most definitely not a recipe for perfecting a performance. When teaching, I've found that getting enthusiastic learners to play really slowly is really hard! I think it's a combination on their part of being eager to please, and hoping that any fluffed passages won't be noticed as they gallop on to the easier bits. That's a forlorn hope, of course. A metronome is just about the most useful thing for anyone trying to improve their playing, in my book - just be sure not to buy one of those faulty ones, the sort that keeps speeding up and slowing down while you're playing perfectly in time...
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Post by delb0y on Oct 30, 2017 18:10:52 GMT
I always play new pieces very slowly. Usually learn a bar or two at a time, once I'm up to about four bars I play those four over and over for a week or so, then add a couple more bars... It takes a long time to learn a piece this way, but by the time you've got it ingrained it's usually not so difficult to speed it up (within reason). Whenever I get to a section that I can't nail, I break it right down, often to just a couple of notes. It's a good job I have lots of patience.
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Post by vikingblues on Oct 30, 2017 19:12:47 GMT
I play everything pretty slowly but I've not tried playing really slowly as part of a practice routine. 1/4 speed is a massive slowdown! I can see how it will show up lack of control and precision and it will allow you to be much more analytical in your appraisal of your own playing. Playing slower pieces has it's difficult aspect in that mistakes do seem to be very much in the spotlight, so I feel there's a logic to this practice routine. It will be interesting to hear how you find this helping (or hindering) your playing further down the line. Mark
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Post by lavaman on Oct 30, 2017 19:25:15 GMT
It took me a looooong time to realise that all the advice I'd received about learning by playing slow was absolutely spot on. You can't hide your mistakes and you soon identify where you're going wrong. It feels a bit spooky at first and I found the best way to keep slow time is to tap your foot in a really exaggerated manner. No need for one of Riverman's dodgy metronome. Keep at it Julie, it really works.
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Post by Riverman on Oct 30, 2017 19:53:51 GMT
No need for one of Riverman 's dodgy metronome. Oi! Finest quality, just slight damage from when they fell off the back of that lorry!
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Post by creamburmese on Oct 30, 2017 20:07:53 GMT
Glad to hear that I'm not alone in this, although I have to admit that going -that- slowly is a bit extreme, and although I've had it suggested to me, I haven't actually done it - I'm typical of Riverman's students - way too impatient to get it up to tempo. However this time my teacher " promised" me he was going to make me play like that as soon as I walked in the door next (- er - this) week....... I don't know whether it will work when under teacher-stress, but when I'm at home it does seem to be getting better - here is my day-to-day log on progress posted HERE Also, I hope, fervently wish for, get down on my knees that this process will actually supplement the memorization process so I'm not totally dependent on muscle memory (that least dependable of memory types) to get through a piece. The crawling along seems to make me think about what I'm doing, so If I'm lucky I actually know what's coming next in my head instead of just in my fingers. Time will tell.
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Post by Onechordtrick on Oct 31, 2017 6:05:26 GMT
Works for me as well. I also find that the mantra my son was given when he started to learn the piano helps: slowly, separately, sections.
Obviously the separately, play left and right hands on their own before putting them together doesn’t work so well for stringed instruments but breaking a piece into sections and learning them slowly helps
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Post by geddarby on Oct 31, 2017 9:32:24 GMT
That nasty Riverman had me implanted with one of his dodgy metronomes which would explain a lot about my crap playing
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Post by Riverman on Oct 31, 2017 11:21:41 GMT
That nasty Riverman had me implanted with one of his dodgy metronomes which would explain a lot about my crap playing Nah, you were born with that in your genes. But can you imagine sounding like you'd been synchronised with a marching band? Wouldn't work for your style of music at all. But to be clear, I wasn't suggesting that anyone should become a slave to the metronome. In the context of playing very slowly, it's a way of giving you access to a kind of handrail, so you don't fall over. More generally, I think it's about knowing where the beat is, and where you are in relation to it, rather than sounding like a drum machine. When I've used a click track for recording I often stray slightly from it, but it stops the almost inevitable speeding up you get when the adrenalin starts pumping.
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Post by ocarolan on Oct 31, 2017 11:32:09 GMT
That nasty Riverman had me implanted with one of his dodgy metronomes which would explain a lot about my crap playing Nah, you were born with that in your jeans................ ...and I thought he was just very pleased to see me... Keith
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Post by Riverman on Oct 31, 2017 12:01:49 GMT
Nah, you were born with that in your jeans................ ...and I though he was just very pleased to see me... Keith Hey, you misquoted me! FAKE NEWS!!
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Post by missclarktree on Oct 31, 2017 13:33:46 GMT
Julie - you've inspired me to try the extreme slowness method. The piece I'm working on at the moment is seven pages long, and I've just about memorized the first four. But, all the while, I'm thinking this will be yet another one that gets abandoned after I've put a lot of work into it, because I'll never get through all that without a mistake. So perhaps this is the ideal one to try practising very slowly. I'll let you know how it goes . . . eventually.
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