Does playing slow actually help?

adamm82

I am trying to learn part of a solo and it's rather fast and I'm struggling.(for the record it's the beginning of the wah part of the Sweet Child solo) 

slowly I can nail it easily. I spent about 3 hours last night playing it over and over and over and I don't see any improvement as soon as I try it slightly quicker it goes wrong.

do I carry on like this and it will come later? Often when I struggle with something the next day I am better so let's see this afternoon. It's weird guitar magic that gives me skills over night. it's also the same magic that steals my picks. 

smigeon

How 'slightly' is 'slightly quicker'? Do it with a metronome and increment in steps of say 5BPM. Do it for a while at each speed step to make sure it's well bedded in. Make the steps smaller if something goes wrong. Keep at it and it will come.

bwets

Make sure you are using efficient movements. It'll come.

m_c

3 hours practising the same thing is far too much IME. I'd aim for 15-20mins on the one thing at most, then have a break or do something else for 30min.

Your brain can only absorb so much at a time. A key practicing thing to learn, is being able to realise the point at which you've stopped improving. If you keep going until you're starting to make mistakes and/or get tired, then your brain is less likely to remember the good practice, so progress will be slower.

There is a lot to said for little and often. When I'm working on something new, I'll spend some time memorising it, then practise it for a short period whenever I can, even if it's just a quick 5 minutes.

Roland

Playing slowly does work. Especially starting r e a l l y  slowly. There's only so much speeding up that you can achieve within a single session. As others have said, it's much better to use short sessions. Then give the unconscious brain time to process what you've learned. Sleeping on it can be very effective. You can then work up speed over a number of days. 

Sporky

Also work on the bit that goes wrong. Keep going (subject to a suitable time limit) until you can do it perfectly 3 times in a row. If you can't, slow down a bit more until you can. Then increase the speed gradually (as already suggested) and make that section a bit longer, again aiming to be able to get it right three times in a row.

roberty

Yes, yes, yes.  The trick is not to try and master it in one sitting.  Get the movements right and then just do it for ten or so minutes every day.  Make sure you're relaxed and that the movements come easily.  You can do something else for a few hours and come back to it on the same day.

roberty

Three hours is too long, it's not possible to concentrate properly for that long and the notes will become meaningless, like when you say the same word over and over again

viz

Agree to all this, but I would add one thing. It might be that the technique you are using is a sub-optimal one; there's often more than one way to play something and sometimes it's impossible to break through the speed barrier unless you choose the right one. 

Lestratcaster

Yes it does, it commits to muscle memory so when you get round to playing it quicker you don't actually think about it.

If I'm doing a riff with a learner I'll start as close to half the tempo as I can and go up in tempo once they've got the rhythm right.

octatonic

m_c said:

3 hours practising the same thing is far too much IME. I'd aim for 15-20mins on the one thing at most, then have a break or do something else for 30min.

Your brain can only absorb so much at a time. A key practicing thing to learn, is being able to realise the point at which you've stopped improving. If you keep going until you're starting to make mistakes and/or get tired, then your brain is less likely to remember the good practice, so progress will be slower.

There is a lot to said for little and often. When I'm working on something new, I'll spend some time memorising it, then practise it for a short period whenever I can, even if it's just a quick 5 minutes.

This nails it.

I practice things in short, discrete chunks  and I do it slowly and deliberately.
This is how we were taught to practice at music school at it absolutely works.

Try this- 20 repetitions of something slowly and deliberately for 20 days.
You can start to accelerate the tempo as it becomes more automatic but that process is slower than most people think it is.

Hitting something little and often is much more efficient than grinding it out for hours at a time.

I've done the mega-long 10 hour a day practice sessions for weeks on end and it is clear to me that they are ultimately less fruitful than short but concentrated sessions. Your hands will thank you too.

Practicing slowly and deliberately is much harder mentally because you have to fight your natural tendency to speed up.
Thinking of it as a test of character is a good was to absorb that extra stress.
Another thing to do is to mentally run through what you are about to do before you do it- using your brain to practice something mentally is extremely effective and it gets you out of playing things 'your way' and instead playing how they are written.

mike_l

I find when learning a part slowly with a metronome and deliberately counting the notes helps. I will start at 40-50 BPM and make sure both hands do slowly what they would do fast. So an alternate picked part is alternate picked slowly and sped up once I have both hands working together. 
Also I won't spend more than 30 minutes on one thing, partly due to the hitting the wall and not progressing any more thing and partly due to boredom. Go play something you know to start and finish your practise time, so you start and finish on a "I can play that" high.

Catthan

Slow helps with getting stuff in your ears. If you can't hear it you won't play it no matter the technique.
I find this often gets missed. So whatever it is you are practicing, make sure you engage your ears as much as your fingers.
A good test is being able to sing it (not at pitch) and slow helps with that.

Then everything else already said about efficiency, right technique and practice routines.

According to some learning theories, pushing beyond one's capability is an effective way that stimulates growth so once you get the pattern down (ears and fingers) every once in a while you can break the slow routine and overstretch even if it sounds bad. 
then back to slow and building speed up. 
I think this is not new

adamm82

thanks guys. I think I was just impatient though now I can play it much faster without even realising.

underdog

Like you I find just leaving it for a day not two also works wonders with stuff you've hit a wall with.

prlgmnr

I find I get the best results from trying to slow down to the point where it becomes so slow it's getting to be as hard as I'm finding it to play it up to speed/fast, if that makes any sense. I think it was Yo Yo Ma who said if someone can tell what you're playing, you're not playing slowly enough for it to count as practise.

And then rather than working up incrementally from there, jump to twice as fast or all the way to speed or even faster, depending on what works.

Sometimes though, you're just not hearing something and it might just take you some time of working on something else to get your.... "listening chops" up to it.

As an example, it took me about 6 months to get the pre-chorus bit from Unchained by Van Halen, and even then I had to print it out and write out the timings on it in pen, bold for accents (1 + 2 + 3 + 4 + and so on).

Yngwie says "slow is relaxed, relaxed is controlled, controlled is fast, therefore slow is fast", however I find that slow can actually be incredibly stiff because you tense up to try and force control, so slow is only relaxed if you really pay attention to it being relaxed, and once you ARE relaxed, coming up to speed suddenly seems easy.

Part of why this is hard is because you can generally attain SOME degree of speed by forcing it with a lot of tension, but eventually you hit a hard limit.

finest1

taking a rest will help. you need to give your body time to adapt to what you are asking it to do. every guitarist here can testify that when we used to practice something too much, after a days break, you can play it well.

in reference to your original question, yes it does help. I think of it as programming the notes, the strings, the picking into your body. if you can play it slow, you'll be able to play to speed. I remember learning SCoM (which is on my youtube channel) and it did take time to get the notes and feel right.

Danji

I play things so slowly I'm almost doing tai chi. If fact that's a pretty good summarisation, take it as slow as you can.

If you're playing a part of a tune it helps to get an app that will slow it down for you. The most important rule is keeping in time throughout the practice regardless of the tempo. A metronome will help as well. 

octatonic

bwets said:

Make sure you are using efficient movements. It'll come.

This.
In most cases people try to accelerate the pace too quickly.
When I learned Donna Lee it was mostly at 50bpm.
I eventually got it up to 200bpm.

If you need a rough (and alterable) roadmap for tempo acceleration then try this.

Week 1: 25% of target tempo
Week 2: 50% of target tempo
Week 3: 75% of target tempo
Week 4: 90% of target tempo
Week 5: At target tempo.

Clearly this depends on what you are playing, how much of a stretch it is for you and the available time you have to practice.

stratman3142

Catthan said:

Slow helps with getting stuff in your ears. If you can't hear it you won't play it no matter the technique.
I find this often gets missed. So whatever it is you are practicing, make sure you engage your ears as much as your fingers.
A good test is being able to sing it (not at pitch) and slow helps with that.

That's an interesting point. I don't literally sing things but I like to hear them in my mind up to actual tempo, whilst not playing the guitar.

I sometimes find things, such as sweep picking lines, harder to play slowly than fast. But I feel I'm on shaky ground if I can't play a phrase in a controlled manner at speeds below actual tempo, and there's a risk it might fall apart.

skunkwerx

If you've nailed it slow with good technique, try playing it faster than the recording a few times, as fast as you can. 

Don't worry about getting it clean or fucking up. Just go extra fast. 

Then try playing it at the record speed. It'll feel easier.