🐌 How slowly do you really practice?
We all know we are supposed to practice slowly, and most of us still play faster than we should when no one is watching. Real slow practice is harder than it sounds — it asks for patience, attention, and the discipline to stay under tempo when the hands want to run. Some swear by it as the single most useful tool they have, others struggle to make themselves do it.
💬 What does slow practice look like for you?
- How slow is slow, honestly, and can you hold that tempo without drifting faster?
- What does playing under tempo let you notice that full speed hides — tension, timing, tone, a shaky shift?
- Is slow practice something you enjoy, endure, or still have to talk yourself into?
Playing slowly is where most of the real work quietly happens, even though it rarely feels like progress in the moment. Let's trade how we actually use it.
8 replies
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I really like slow practice. But I may be doing it wrong. I put the metronome at 60 bpm and try to make sure I play on a beat. But I am not sure that is such a good idea as it is not playing the music to the correct rhythm. When I slow practice my main aim is making sure I have thought about what I am doing before getting my fingers to move to the correct position to play the correct notes.
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For me slow practice is a very important strategy. I especially like the way Łukasz Kuropaczewski presents it here on Tonebase. For me the challenge comes when it’s time to speed up the piece to know exactly when and how much. For example I’m currently learning Las Abejas. You can’t keep it slow forever or it becomes Los Caracoles! So my solution so far has been to always do one pass at 60 bpm - so very slowly. After that I play at my “safe tempo.” That’s the tempo I’ve currently worked it up to where I can play it cleanly how I want. After that I speed it up by say 10pm and see where it breaks. From here I make those breaks into spot practice sections. I play them slowly and analyze why the mistake happens. Is it a shift? A slide? A finger not moving quickly enough? Hand position? Something else? This is my process until I end up with a new “safe tempo” and so I continue on and on and on…Finally when I hit my desired tempo then I need a plan to maintain it while learning and reviewing other repertoire. Sometimes that means alternating slow and fast tempos. Because you can’t play fast if you don’t practice going fast. I’d love to hear how other people work with slow tempo and how they proceed to their desired target tempo. I’m sure I can learn something from all of you! Thanks for the topic Martin. It’s currently very relevant!
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Far more faster than I did think. (The human mind has many shortcomings! 😄) Nowadays I’ll stick to the metronome for practicing. It’ll give me more time to control all movements and let me hear the notes I’m missing. In a way I like slow practice….
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Well, I practice at a tempo of 60 bpm, paying special attention to the tricky passages. But the result is surprising: if I already knew the piece by heart and used to play it faster, playing it super slowly now makes me suddenly forget what comes next. It seems to me that muscle memory fails when playing slowly, doesn't it?
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I don't go for beats per minute. Instead I go for notes per minute, usually starting at no faster than 40-60 notes per minute. At that pace I have time to set my fingers (both hands), observe how that feels and get ready to shift to the next note. At this speed it's not really music, but more of a hand training thing. When I get so I can grab whatever chord and jump to the next one, I speed up. It's not very satisfying, but it works for me.
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Slow practice is at the core of my practice. Once I have learned the notes and able to make all of the chord changes smoothly, slow practice is usually in the range of 50 - 60 bpm. I have had a few pieces where my practice was slower than that, as low as 30 bpm. An example of 30 was a piece that was all 16th notes. I will continue at a slow tempo until I have it sounded the way I want it, then I will begin to work up to the full tempo. I must say that I enjoy this slow practice as it gives me time to process and analyze everything that is happening.