When Slow Practice Works Better Than Fast Practice
1. Why We Resist Slow Practice
When I was 11, much of my music learning was focused on what would make me look cool and impress people. I hadn’t yet had a piano lesson and so I was just teaching myself some hard pieces by listening to them and occasionally trying to decipher some notation. The aim was always to go into school the next day and play obnoxiously loud in a practice room with the door open so people really knew I was the coolest guy around.
This meant that I was always trying to learn the notes as quickly as possible and get my hands to play them. So my “practice” was rushed and didn’t really have any substance. I was always tense and trying to learn the notes using brute force.
Now, as an adult, a pianist, and a teacher, it interests me why I thought that was the best way to practice and why many others do too.
One reason is perhaps that playing fast feels more like the real thing. If we play fast, we feel like we are closer to what the end result is going to be. It’s more motivating and exciting.
Another reason might be that slow practice feels more like actual practice and is more boring. It can even feel like a waste of time.
However, playing quickly is often a trap. Rushing to play a piece fast is tempting, yet mistakes are always much harder to fix later on, and by playing fast we are often baking these mistakes in. Practicing at speed is not always a problem and is sometimes exactly the right thing to do, but slowing down your practice is often the answer to building fluency into your playing.
2. Why Slow Practice Works
When I was 19, I was learning a Bach Prelude and Fugue for a recital. The Bach Preludes and Fugues are notoriously difficult to learn because the hands are often split into completely independent voices (e.g. four different melodies happening at the same time between your two hands). Prior to learning any Bach Preludes and Fugues (other than the C major/C minor preludes), I thought I knew what patient practice was, but this was a real test of that!
With these kinds of pieces you have no choice but to work slowly and methodically through the music, sometimes practicing just two beats over and over again to organise your hands and work out exactly how the notes should be played. It was after learning the Prelude and Fugue that I realised there is a lot of benefit in taking the time to really work out how something should be played. In the long term, it actually helps you learn the piece quicker.
Playing slowly gives your brain the time to process the notes and the information. If you have a piece that is 100 bars long, and you learn two bars each practice in depth, that would take you 50 sessions to learn the piece. Whereas if you rush through eight bars per practice by playing fast, you are likely going to spend ten times the amount of time fixing the mistakes and trying to rewire how you play the music. Even then, it will still likely not sound as good or as meaningful.
There is also a phenomenon I’ve noticed where players’ motivation to fix a piece is much lower once all the notes are learned.
Slow practice is a little bit like using a magnifying glass. It allows you the space and the time to zoom in on the music and explore exactly how it should sound and how you want your hands to move in order to make it sound that way. Often, when playing fast, these kinds of details are missed.
3. How to Use Slow & Fast Practice
Having said that, slow practice is not always the answer and there are situations where practicing quickly is needed. Sometimes you will be playing a piece of music where the final result will need to be fast. In order to do that comfortably, you will need to get used to playing at that speed. To do this, it’s wise to first make sure your hands can play slowly, and then try very small sections at the required tempo so that there is a low likelihood of tension and a high chance of success.
Slow practice is also not about playing mindlessly, it’s about playing intentionally. The idea is to focus on tone, rhythm, how your hands are moving, and the story you are telling. This often means really exaggerating what you are doing. You might play incredibly staccato, make a crescendo very obvious, or really intentionally join up the notes. Whatever the music requires can be highlighted by playing slower.
The speed that you practice is not an either/or situation. Some pieces may require you to practice slower than others, and you can gradually increase the speed so that you are still able to incorporate everything you are focusing on.
The important thing to remember is that slow practice is a tool that should make up the vast majority of your initial practice on a piece of music. It’s the fastest way to build security, accuracy, and confidence at the piano. However, while it’s a tool, it’s not a rule and it works best when used with intention.
Matthew Cawood
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