Hitting the wall

[cisco]

I am a beginner about to become a retired beginner.  My problem is speed or tempo.
I will soon get past waltzes and ballads only to collide with ethnic music, etc.   
How can I approach this issue ( “play faster “ not acceptable ! )

[Danny G]

You can't play it fast until you can play it slow.

[jasonic]

You can't play it fast until you can play it slow.

Truer words were ne'er spoken. when I'm learning a new tune that requires some complex runs I have to practice it insanely slow at first to nail down the muscle memory. If you have a program that slows things down, either on a tablet or desktop computer that's really helpful.

[Gnarly He Man]

I bought that 3 CD set of Toot’s . . .
He got good, you can too.

[SaxonyFan]

You also must hear fast to play fast well.

I noticed long ago that when playing my “other instrument” if I attempted to play something fast and it didn’t quite fit musically I would tense up and limit my speed. It was almost reflexive.

The only way to hear fast is to first hear slow.

[Keith]

Practice, practice, practice......... it is, unfortunately, the only way. 

[Laina]

I find the advice here about learning and then knowing the melody in your head and singing it - in my case croaking ,so I whistle -  very useful.
I also use the Slow down app on a tablet or Transcribe! program on PC as well as a metronome. I was advised to try one tricky phrase at a time,  play it 3 times with no mistakes, take a short rest to reset yourself. Little and often, always ending on a positive note, play something you love, works better for me than flogging on for hours.

[cisco]

Incidentally, one of my inventions is to practice tabs mentally without harp....that is to encourage a mental map.
This helps but practice, practice, practice may be the bottom line.
Yes, I often get ambushed by my slow mode.

[SlideMeister]

Maybe it's just me (and even if it's not, I don't give a rip. "Old" is like that  ) but firstly, I think speed is overrated. I used to play real fast stuff, but now, I've moved away from it in favor of tone and phrasing. Blinding speed is only acceptable when it's done super clean. When it's sloppy, it's a total waste of time.  Here my take, in order of priority:

1.  Playing the right notes (do ray mi)
2.  Playing them clean (articulation)
3.  Timing and rhythm (one, two, three. four)
4.  Tone  (nice sounding)
5.  Phrasing (Adding the "Oooo dat's nice" factor)
6.  Vibrato and other "finishing techniques
7.  Yada-yada
8.  Yada-yada
9.  Speed
10. Hat
11. Sunglasses
12. Effects

Until you get your timing and rhythm nailed down, you're not making music, AND it just may even turn out to be your biggest challenge.

[wolfman]

 Well ok than,you got it,
let'er rip.

  Roman

[Crawforde]

What Age said.
Except in  Florida the hat and sunglasses move to the top of the list.
Unless you want to look like an overcooked lobster, or are allowed to play indoors.

[brorat]

I, too, agree with Age. As you may have seen in my “Merry Christmas” post, I’ve already perfected the South Carolina hat and sunglasses. With that out of the way... on to getting clean, good total quality and sounding more “finished”.

[cisco]

Age list impressive but phrasing at number 5 ?

I have realized that phrasing is crucial to execution because:

phrasing is usually based on chord structure
chord structure suggests acceptable notes

In a broader sense, I think of it as “hearing” the key .
I am in trouble if I can’t hear the key or the phrasing.

Phrasing is also part of my preference for reading sheet music
which is a natural feature of the notation.

PS I’m still trying to figure out how to practice Irish music slow !

[Laina]

Age, your list is wonderful - but I find getting consistency on the first few tips can be patchy. Some days notes and tone ok but timing sucks, others good timing but articulation weak. I don't play that fast pieces and wear photochrome specs which often look like sunglasses too 

[Keith]

PS I’m still trying to figure out how to practice Irish music slow !

Do like the whistle & flute players do, start off by getting the tune down, then speed up, then add in the embellishments. 

[cisco]

Yes, the tune. 
Sometimes I cheat with playing the tune on melodica.
Can be very useful as you suggest.

[SlideMeister]

Age list impressive but phrasing at number 5 ?

I have realized that phrasing is crucial to execution because:

phrasing is usually based on chord structure
chord structure suggests acceptable notes

In a broader sense, I think of it as “hearing” the key .
I am in trouble if I can’t hear the key or the phrasing.

Phrasing is also part of my preference for reading sheet music
which is a natural feature of the notation.

PS I’m still trying to figure out how to practice Irish music slow !

Yeah. The truth is, working on your phrasing isn't practical (more accurately - doesn't really happen  ) until your playing (with the right, clean notes & timing and stuff) can be done like chewing gum while walking. Until you can "shelve" your concentration of notes and stuff, (cuz it's automatically going on in the background) you aren't ready for phrasing. Think about it: Phrasing just kinda happens as your playing becomes "less strained."

[SlideMeister]

Age, your list is wonderful - but I find getting consistency on the first few tips can be patchy. Some days notes and tone ok but timing sucks, others good timing but articulation weak. I don't play that fast pieces and wear photochrome specs which often look like sunglasses too 

Then I'll bet you've noticed that its much easier to "mess with" the phrasing on the numbers that you play like "shakin' a stick" right? You can't effectively move in another difficult/challenging area till you've freed up enough grey matter to take on the job. Oh, I'll take that back; you can, but it ain't gunna sound good.

[frankyb]

I find this thread very useful.

Age's list and, especially his explanation of why he placed "phrasing" as number 5, I think will be very helpful to me.  I have learned to play only melodies that I know and like and I immediately try to use phrasing and never learn to get all the other steps right first. If you don't know how to play the melody accurately and with good tone, you don't have the base to personalize it with your own  phrasing. Duh, I think I just learned that.

I don't play fast much, but I do play a couple of melodies that are fairly fast and the "Slow before Fast" 'rule' makes so much sense.

Thanks to all.

[cisco]

There is obviously some differences for the definition of “phrasing”  😄

[frankyb]

There is obviously some differences for the definition of “phrasing”  😄

Here is the definition I am using:

"Musical phrasing is the way a musician shapes a sequence of notes in a passage of music to allow expression, much like when speaking English a phrase may be written identically but may be spoken differently, and is named for the interpretation of small units of time known as phrases." Wikipedia

Here is a more complete discussion.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Musical_phrasing

[SlideMeister]

Yep. To me, phrasing is the musical equivalent of moving the commas around and messing with the punctuation.

[cisco]

Thanks to Wikipedia I now realize that I am at the “analytic” stage of learning
on my way to being “intuitive”  and that’s good !
Kidding aside, great Wikipedia info !

[smojoe]

Oi, what's that in the road ahead?
Oi, what's that in the road? A head?
Case closed lolol.
smo-joe

[frankyb]

Oi, what's that in the road ahead?
Oi, what's that in the road? A head?
Case closed lolol.
smo-joe

LOL 

[Crawforde]

My hobbies are cooking pets and children.
Don’t be psycho, use punctuation.

[cisco]

I went back to again confront my most challenging tune given the
inspiration of this thread. It still looked menacing on my IPAD screen
but I didn’t even blink.  Instead, I dragged a stray pinky across
the touch tone screen to erase the sheet music file in an irreversible fashion
and I forgot the title.
But the Irish music sites have hundreds of tunes.
No rest for the weary.
But I know how to deal with it!

[Piccolo Pete]

Oi, what's that in the road ahead?
Oi, what's that in the road? A head?
Case closed lolol.
smo-joe

Hahaha! It's like to old sign at some parks.
No walking on the grass allowed
No, walking on the grass allowed.

[Scotty]

My hobbies are cooking pets and children.
Don’t be psycho, use punctuation.

I think this one sailed on by --downright hilarious, Eric, as was Smokey's.

scotty

[Scotty]

I find the advice here about learning and then knowing the melody in your head and singing it - in my case croaking ,so I whistle -  very useful.
I also use the Slow down app on a tablet or Transcribe! program on PC as well as a metronome. I was advised to try one tricky phrase at a time,  play it 3 times with no mistakes, take a short rest to reset yourself. Little and often, always ending on a positive note, play something you love, works better for me than flogging on for hours.

/THIS!!!!!   (I can't whistle, but if I could, I would). I also haven't used slow downer since I won't play super fast songs unless I've listened to them a zillion times and learned or know them well enough to play. But I have jammed along with Kenny G - playing those parts I know well enough - and simply dancing to the rest  (what an ego boost). 'Playing something you love' and 'knowing the melody in your head' are the top two, as well as I love your always ending on a positive note. That's gold, since ending on a negative note would almost inevitably set up a lack of interest in playing the next day - for me, anyway.

I'd add that I wouldn't suggest ending the night practicing something extremely difficult or tricky which results in frustration or deeply negative feelings since your brain will likely spend your sleep time trying to work through it and IF you need restorative sleep that isn't particularly good. However, if you're
young and can do without sleep, never mind.   Ending a practice (or playing) session with something you love and sounds great to your ear seems logical to inspire eagerness to get back to it the next day. Sometimes I go upstairs and play my keyboards in the dark - just inventing stuff (occasionally wishing I'd recorded so much of it), but I prefer keeping it simple in the moment, since doing so always seems to trigger wanting to duplicate some of that fantastic feeling with my chromatic the next day. I don't think we lose anything we 'input into our brain's computer'. The trick is in accessing it afterwards.

scotty