Odd? I can play something fast, but not slow...

it happens more often than you think, my hoel philosphy on it is at that speed, your fingers have a mind of their own....your not really concentrating on (ok 1st finger hit ###), they just do it themselves. well when you slow down, it makes you think, cuz ur fingers want to play it fast...i dunno, thats the way i think of it, but its normal man, just take i with the dread METRONOME lol, :)

It's actually harder to play slow tempos than fast ones.

If you're screaming along doing sixteenth notes at 120 bpm - 8 notes per second - and you're off 5% on your timing, a note will be out of place by less than 1/100th of a second... you'll probably never notice it. Slow it down to quarter notes at 40 bpm, and that same 5% error will be huge.

That's a bit of an exaggerated example, of course, but the point is at slow tempos, the tiny mistakes you miss at fast speeds are suddenly obvious... and when your ear isn't hearing exactly what the mind expects, the mind tries to compensate with tiny corrections, which can mess things up even further.

That's a good way of explaining it. I'd have to say that I find it harder to keep good time a low bpm as opposed to cranking out 1/8th notes at 120 bpm. What I find really hard is to be playing a fast song then come to a measure that has you play one whole note for that measure. That waiting seems like an eternity. I was working on two songs last night and each have a few “stops” like that. :oops:

Yeah, i guess that does make sense. Anyway I decided to spend more time practicing slower with a metronome to work on my rhythm. Simple scale things and riffs that I usually blaze through much slower. I never really practiced with a metronome, but these past few days I discovered I don't have the greatest rhythm. Right now I'm workin on 16ths at slow tempos. Anyway, Thanks all.

It really is funny how necessary and hated metronomes actually are. Ive ranted for hours to kids I work with about how they need to use metronomes constantly to produce solid results, but I find myself following my own advice less and less. Maybe it has something to do with metronomes pointing and laughing at every mistake we make. They think they are so damn perfect... :evil:

Because they usally are. :wink:

Hes not so tough without his batteries though.

Kido

Hes not so tough without his batteries though.

Kido

Put the battteries in backwards -- that usually shuts 'em up for good.

Yep, metronomes are definately valuable. A bit frustrating at first, but thats with anything. And the benefits of using one are great.

Ack, you guys missed my favorite trick!

Everyone seems to utilize the "slow speed up" method to get blisteringly fast, that is, moving the metronome up by 4-8 bpm and practicing until you hit your target tempo, but the reverse is just as effective.

If you take your riff, find the tempo you're currently playing it at, and then slow it down gradually, your mind will have plenty of time to adjust to hearing the correct timing.

Play riff 10 times at speed...

Drop tempo by 4 bpm

*Repeat as needed*

You'll be at your target in no time.

I guess that's one approach.... but there's a reason most of us start slow and work up:

Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.

If you're doing something ten times that you can't do right, you're essentially practicing your mistakes. If you play it slowly enough that it's perfect, you're focusing on the technique and building muscle memory in hitting the right notes, not just any notes at speed.

That said, there is a trick I've used to get people over the hump - sometimes speed in itself is frightening, and it's like a wall you have to get through. If you can play it at 80bpm, but not at 120 (your target), and errors keep creeping in at 84bpm.... try it ONCE at 100 bpm, errors and all. Then immediately try it again at 84. The slower speed will seem much easier, and you might be able to nail it. Then go back to slowly increasing the speed from there.

I'm not sure if you misread something or I misexplained, but he said he could play it fine fast, just not slow, I suggested that he slow it down slowly, 4-8 bpm at a time, that way he develops the ability to play it at the time he desires.

I only mentioned the technique of speeding up slowly as a reference to the technique I was explaining. :)

If you're doing something ten times that you can't do right, you're essentially practicing your mistakes. If you play it slowly enough that it's perfect, you're focusing on the technique and building muscle memory in hitting the right notes, not just any notes at speed.

Something I've been wondering for a while: how true is this? I know this advice is being repeated by pretty much everyone who knows what he is talking about, but still, I am not too sure. I've written too small riffs, both similar in difficulty, and learned one by going slowly faster, and the other by simply repeating it over and over again at correct tempo. It took roughly the same ammount of time to learn both riffs, and I can play both at slower speeds no problem.

And besides, I have found plenty of evidence that suggest the brain does not store information if the result was undesired, while you do store the parts that work. This would mean that you can learn yourself bad technique if the immediate results are positive, but it would also mean that there is not much, if any at all, bad info stored if you start at full speed.

Anyone here with any actual fact-based information about this?

Noteboat said so. Thats factual :lol:.

Just kidding.

I dunno, i dont usually do it. I just play.

Arjen, I think the brain stores positively reinforced things, and rejects negatively reinforced ones... but when I play fast guitar passages I don't really 'think' about them - I'm relying on the habits developed through practice.

Improvised guitar parts are really composed of segments of scales and arpeggios. Practicing those makes them rote... I don't think about the scalar part, I think about where I'm going to differ from it. If I'm zipping along in a solo, I don't think 'A-C-E-G-B-C-B-A-G-A-B-C#-E-G'... I just picture the sounds I want from the Am9 apreggio and the Am scale. The only note I'd actually think about there is the C# - I'm probably thinking about that (by note name and visualizing it on the fretboard) as I start into that section.

I don't practice mistakes, so I can't say with certainty that doing so won't work in the end. But the idea that muscle memory plays as much role in speed as the brain does I can reason it out:

The C major scale, open position, has strings fingered 0-2-3, and the C major scale uses fingering 1-2 on the 1st string in the 7th position. Those two fingerings are all that's needed to play a one-octave Am scale in open position. If you can play those two C major scales at a quick tempo, but you don't know harmonic minor scales, you should be able to play the Am scale at the same tempo as soon as its shown to you... there are no new motions.

But it turns out that's not the case. The major scale doesn't have 0-2-3 followed by 1-2, so you actually have to think about where that combination has to happen. Even though the individual string picking patterns are nothing new, combining them can't be done without practice (think of any new scale you've ever worked on - did you start out at speed?)

There's one other factor that I can give personal testimony to: every once in a while, maybe 2-3 times a year, I'll be cross-picking a passage and 'over-pick' or 'under-pick' a string so that my pick is out of position for the next note. I'll know my pick is in the wrong place by feel, and I'll have to do an up-stroke instead of a planned downstroke (or vice versa) to get the next note right. I'm usually able to accomplish that on the fly... but there's a moment of panic, and a conscious effort to correct. While I'm busy thinking about getting that note right, I'm not thinking about where I'm going with the next segment of the solo... they tend to be less than memorable when that happens. I'm also so focused on getting the right pitch that I lose some dynamic control - the recovered note will probably be too loud in comparison to the surrounding ones. That leads me to believe that if you're busy trying to react to negative influences while you practice, you'll be ignoring a lot of big-picture stuff, and you won't play up to your potential.

Undercat, you're right - I misunderstood you. If it's flawless at speed, you could reduce in steps to get it perfect at slower tempos.

As I read the debate here on practicing I have to ask what role motivation plays in the whole scheme or learning a skill. If we notice little difference in the speed with which we learn, regardless of practicing mistakes, is speed really the variable that is affecting our performance when it comes to learning?

Going slow is no fun for most people. It is not, in and of itself, a rewarding experience. Thus it would seem that any "correct" actions acheived as a result of going slowly would be less intrinsicaly rewarding. Very often people think "As slow as that was a monkey could have done it!" or some such thing when a passage is played slowly, but entirely correctly. The reward value of each correct action is lessened by the reduced intrinsic value associated with doing things slowly. With the lessened "value" of each reward (ie. correct note) the learning we ahceive with each trial is limited by that reduced value.

Going through a passage fast, which most would agree is more fun, can be a much more intrinsically rewarding expereince than doing it slowly. Thus the correct notes we acheive may be fewer for each trial, but these notes carry more intrinic value for us as we place much more value on doing things fast. As a result the amount of learning we achieve , per reward (ie. correct note), is higher because of the higher "value" of the reward we perceive because it was done quickly.

In the example I gave above a person may be able to acheive the same amount of learning in either case. I am making the assumptions that faster feels better for most people (in some situations at least), rewrard value is based on perceived difficulty of a task in relation to speed, and that learning may be based on the intrinsic value of the reward. All other factor in each case are assumed to be equal (for arguement sake).

If we could say:

Rate of Learning = Value of the reward x number of rewards

It may explain similarity of result in terms of learning speed that Arjen has pointed out. Just some thoughts.

(Arjen, do you still have your Dean? I just ordered one and can't wait. I'm finally taking the plunge and going electric)