Practice at 3 Tempos (Never Stop Practicing Music Slowly)

A lesson on practicing music at three tempos and the need to continue to practice slowly even if you’ve brought your exercise or repertoire to a high speed. This is all framed within the idea to always practice at a high quality level. Here’s the YouTube link if you want to watch it there.

• Video Times and Topics
• 00:00 Intro
• 0:43 – Metronome Progress Tracking
• 2:08 – 3 Tempos to Practice
• 4:04 – Reasons for Each Tempo
• 8:23 – Pushing Beyond Performance Tempo
• 9:04 – Summary
• 10:11 – Memory Work
• 11:20 – Conclusion

Some Main Points

Metronome tracking – You can use a metronome to track your progress for quality practicing. Be sure to keep the quality very high if raising the tempo. This can be a great way to boost your confidence by seeing your tempo raise over long periods of time.

Turn off the metronome – You’ll also want to turn the metronome off and work more on natural phrasing, articulation, and rhythm. The metronome is a great tool but it can also be a distraction so don’t practice exclusively with it.

3 Tempos – Continue to practice at 3 tempos even if you’ve reached your desired tempo.

• Ultra Slow – Rethink your muscle memory and challenge your knowledge of the piece. This will help you to not just play on automatic pilot. This is an opportunity to make solid contact on each note and be very precise with articulation.
• Medium – This is an excellent tempo to work on solid playing along with some phrasing that more represents the final musical product. It’s held back enough for maximum confidence but won’t contain performance flare and risk.
• Performance Tempo and Beyond – Still within quality levels but includes a test for calculated risk and challenge.

Memory Work – Practicing at various tempos can really help your memory work as well. Muscle memory in the hands can give you a false impression of how well you have a piece memorized. Playing ultra slowly might cancel your muscle memory so you can reexamine your memory of the piece.