The Power of Slow Practice: How Slowing Down Can Help You Master the Piano

[@Alwpiano]

I've made the mistake of learning incorrect habits and they're even harder to erase. Slow playing to begin. Always!

[@2011watchman]

Your commitment to teaching and sharing so much of your training & experience is incredibly helpful. As an older man taking up piano considerably late in life, I was uncertain how well or whether I could do it. Your rich content and calm, encouraging style of teaching have made learning piano albeit slowly a reality. Thanks so much for sharing a part of your life with us here.

[@PianoRoadmap]

Thank you for your kind words! It's always so inspiring to hear about people taking up music as an adult. I'm so glad to hear that my teaching style and content have been helpful to you. I love sharing my training and experience with others to help them reach their full potential. Thank you so much for taking the time to share your kind words and experiences with me. It's comments like this that make all the hard work and dedication worth it.

[@pjmccarthy5898]

I recently heard the phrase "practice makes permanent" which is just a way to underline what is being said here. Take your sweet time, savor the process, focus on the moment, be aware of what it is you are trying to do. Thank You for this!

[@PianoRoadmap]

I love that saying because it's so true! Thanks for sharing.

[@goettling]

I am so guilty of not practicing slowly. When I do, improvement is evident. Thank you for reminding! Going to do or right now.

[@childofMotherMary]

same, i get so impatient :/

[@uravghuman]

It feels like listening to an extremely informative yet caring podcast. Thank you so much.

[@PianoRoadmap]

Thank you!🥰

[@richard135b7]

I'm finally convinced. You convinced me today I should be doing more slow practice. Thank you

[@brendamengeling4653]

Thanks. I do slow practice but not often enough. I’ve been thinking that it will help me learn to play more connectedly from measure to measure. I’ve noticed over the ten months I’ve played that my maximum tempo for playing anything has gradually increased, and I bet that if I didn’t worry about how below the suggested tempo I sometimes play (110 bpm is my current max), I’d probably make better progress.

[@posticious]

thanks so much for this video, I’m more than halfway through Ballade No. 1 by Chopin I’ll be incorporating this into my practice!!

[@PianoRoadmap]

Quite the project! Good luck 😃🥳🎹

[@dgpianomusic]

I love your content! It's helping a lot and very insightful. Thank you!

[@jimh1487]

This was very helpful. Thank you.

[@PianoRoadmap]

You're welcome!

[@Susanzakho]

You are a great teacher, many thanks for all your videos.

[@SooMisi]

You are great, thank you very much! My student has been following me since 9 and now she is a terrible teenager at her 15. She is on the final stage which she has to get done her grade 8 exam recording however none of my instructions she listened, witch long finger nails, creative fingerings, consistent incorrect notes, freely tempo…I am desperate. Last time I saw her she even lost her marbles, crying and yelled at me and saying she is not gonna waste anytime to practice slowly but also she says she can never compete this exam. 😭😢😩

[@PianoRoadmap]

That sounds rough but also normal. Between ages 12 & 16 is often the toughest time for the teacher/student relationship and keeping them as students in general. I'm sending you my best wishes 💜

[@Almightservant]

Thanks and greetings from Brazil

[@PianoRoadmap]

👋👋👋

[@DesertRat332]

I always seem to want to play about 10% faster than the speed I can play everything correctly at. 😬But when I can force myself to play at what seems to be tortoise speed it helps my performance and my confidence. I like to play around with my practice pieces by not only playing them at different speeds but also playing them with improvised variations and even repeating certain measures over and over within the piece, then going on. Just "experimenting" with the practice piece or playing a simplified version as I am trying to learn it . I like the saying, "Amateurs practice until they can play it right, professionals practice until they can't play it wrong." 🙂

[@PianoRoadmap]

I love this comment! It's so relatable how we often want to play faster than we're capable of, but slowing down can actually improve our performance and confidence. I also think it's great that you experiment in your practice by improvising. It's a fun and creative approach to practice. Thanks for sharing your thoughts and experiences!

[@TheCompleteGuitarist]

If you can't play it without making a mistake you aren't playing slow enough. I'm a guitarist not a pianist and a teacher and I talk about this with my students. Play slow and speed comes. It is not just about the mechanics, we are also forming a correct sound of the music, not one filled with errors. This is particularly important when working without recorded versions of what we are trying to play because the reality is, if you can't hear it, if you don't know what it sounds like, you can't play it.

[@alexandersson909]

Thank you for this advise, Im Sure, IT works and will Help me...😺

[@pianopressofficial]

Excellent video. I practice slowly. Videos like yours reminds why it is important.

[@nawazsayed7110]

👍What should be the metronome tempo for slow practicing?

[@PianoRoadmap]

It varies from piece to piece. It can be helpful to first ask what the FINAL metronome tempo goal is, then divide that in half and go from there. For a slower piece, half tempo might be waaaaaay too slow. The key is to make sure it feels very easy and controlled for you.

[@nawazsayed7110]

@@PianoRoadmap Thanks for your suggestion.

[@mutantkoffee]

0,5 bpm

[@RenatoOliveiraGaming]

Practicing slow helps a lot! But what about people who hear a song (pop music usually) for the first time and start playing it flawlessly in one shot? Is our take away that the music is easy enough for them so they don't even need to practice? Can this be achieved through training? Because it would be like a training about 'being able to play a song from the first time I hear on it's original speed and flawlessly', it goes against first playing slowly. The motivation for being able to do that is so that we can gather friends, ask them to name a song, and not take more than a minute to play it on piano. Really interested in your comments regarding this ability!

[@PianoRoadmap]

Hi, and thanks for your question! First, playing flawlessly is subjective :) What I thought was flawless 20 years ago is certainly not flawless to me now. Also, you're correct. Pop music is typically much less complicated than classical or other more linear music. Practicing slowly is a tool used when learning a piece that takes effort. You're describing playing by ear, which is a different tool. There are many pieces that I would never ever have to play slowly because they are so simple for me. And there are many that I MUST practice slowly in order to learn the notes and also keep it in control once I have learned them.

[@MPardo-cx6jj]

Miss, thank you so much for this video. I find your tips to be GREAT because you've "connected the dots" and "erased some question marks" in my mind. My teacher, who is a great pianist and a very good teacher is always getting on my case about not playing slow enough. I start off playing slow, but impulsively speed it up before I'm ready to??!! He mentions how Rachmaninoff and other great pianists, spoke about how slow practice was essential, however, he never "connected the dots" as you have! And everything you've stated make all the sense in the world to me! Thank you so much!

[@Thomas11611]

I’m frustrated with a piece I’m working on and doing slow practice. Slow practice definitely helps. Chopin Etude Op. 10 No. 4. The broken octaves in between the call and response from RH to LH. I’m having to practice letting gravity do more of the work for me. This piece is a head scratcher and requires a light touch it seems.. it’ll be rewarding when it’s finally done.

[@PianoRoadmap]

Good luck on the Chopin! If you haven't heard of it before, research "speed bursts." For a piece that eventually has to whiz by, speed bursts are a great companion to slow practice.

[@hippophile]

Great advice. And usefully detailed. Thanks! So for an ethereal kind of piece at 72 bpm (Rachmaninoff prelude Op23#1, Largo) half speed would feel very lethargic. What bpm might you aim at for a general slow run through?

[@PianoRoadmap]

Think in percentages from your final tempo. For a run-through of a piece that is already very slow, you could try 75% speed. Or slower if you are just testing smaller sections for memory or clarity in general.

[@simondavies6270]

Thank you ma'am for making this video showing the importance of slow practice and the many benefits accrued. Appreciation from London UK👍.

[@mzimmer1751]

Slow is smooth, smooth is fast

[@chlorine8477]

Pro tip: watch this video at 0.25x speed

[@PianoRoadmap]

😆 I see what you did there ⬆️

[@MikeI273]

😂

[@NeoZondix]

I'm still on letter 3 of this comment

[@EmogeneHBedrosian]

Very clear, thank you.

[@billrogers5219]

I love slow practice, for all the reasons you mention. The only trouble I think can happen is if you decide to do only slow practice for a long time and try to inch your way up to tempo with a metronome. I think that when you do that, you can engrain movements that only work at slow tempos and you just cannot get up to speed in the end. So I like to spend a little while learning notes with slow practice, then quickly try to speed up to or above final tempo in very short fragments, just a measure or two, then hook up the fragments. I don't worry if I make some slips or mistakes, because I find that a little repetition at fast tempo lets the hands figure things out on their own. Then, once my hands know what sort of movements they are aiming at for full tempo, I go back and intersperse lots of slow practice to get the calm and control you are talking about. The few times I tried to get a piece up to tempo by playing so slowly that I never ever made a mistake and just gradually upping the tempo metronome click by metronome click, I never really liked the final result, maybe because it was more like speed walking than running. I think it helps to jump around between lots of different tempos, and it's OK to play fast and sloppy a few times in the process, as long as you do not just mindlessly do it again and again without ever cleaning up at slow tempo.

[@PianoRoadmap]

Yes, this is great advice! I call these speed bursts and it's how I practice often. Thanks for sharing!

[@dinobucz]

Awesome video!! 🙏🏼🙏🏼🙏🏼

[@fatana9984]

Perfect.thak you❤

[@robertdyson4216]

Very good. I liked the point about slow enabling you to finish feeling positive. I learned this from Shura Cherkassky.

[@gsvenddal728]

Great vid.

[@susiloandianto5411]

Makasih Kak ilmunya salam kenal nich🙋👌👍🤩

[@PianoRoadmap]

You're welcome!

[@NimeuMusic]

South Park reference! Subscribed!

[@PianoRoadmap]

😆❤

[@salvatoreriggi7344]

You are seriously beautiful....😍 Oh and the tips, I like the tips. They will surely help prepare me for my recital. Thank you

[@atommiller]

Do you look at your fingers while playing piano? I'm struggling to focus on the sheet music once I sort of know a section. I find myself trying to follow the notes on the page, but I'm not really interpreting them. Does that make sense?

[@PianoRoadmap]

I don't usually look at my hands while playing with music, but that's because I have years of playing and have a good sense of keyboard geography - kind of like using the QWERTY keyboard. Do you have to look down at your computer keyboard when typing? Probably not if you took typing classes. When you say you're not interpreting the notes on the page, are you basically playing for memory while looking at the spot in the music?

[@atommiller]

@@PianoRoadmap That's exactly what I'm doing - playing from memory while looking at that spot in the music. And most of the time I'm looking at my hands, which I think I need to stop doing. Maybe it just takes years of learning new pieces & exercises until it's like typing on a computer without looking at the keyboard (which I'm able to do with no problem, having learned to type when fairly young.) I'm 21 bars into Bach's BWV 846, and that's the limit of my experience, so perhaps I just need to give it time.

[@foowishamewican]

I practice slow but thats only because im trying to play songs way above my grade...is that good or bad?

[@PianoRoadmap]

If you want to play a piece that is way above your grade, it's ok, but limit it to 1 piece at a time. The rest of your piano songs should be at or just *slightly* above your current level.

[@foowishamewican]

@@PianoRoadmap I literally cannot wait to be trained by you. I know music was important to me but didn't realise how important till I started playing

[@jowr2000]

Did find this vid helpful, but an example at the piano would have been helpful. Esp musical playing at the slow tempo.

[@DihelsonMendonca]

💥 You forgot to say that people need to play slow, but with a steady tempo. You should play very slow, but keeping the time is essential. If not, if you stop to read some chords and go faster on the easier parts, this is a complete recipe for disaster. 🎉❤

[@MiketheNerdRanger]

I ****ing HATE slow practice. My mind just turns COMPLETELY off whenever I practice this way. It isn't engaging or rewarding enough for me to continue and I end up not being able to play better anyway. I have no way around this.

[@PianoRoadmap]

I like to sprinkle it in so it never feels like I'm doing it for a significant period of time. A slow measure here, then back to normal, a slow half measure there, then back to normal. And there are different variations of slow too. It doesn't always have to be painfully slow.