I think JustinGuitar is wrong about playing slowly to get faster

Greatape

Sporky said:

Not essential, but being able to read and transpose opens up the ability to plunder an incredible wealth of musical ideas. 

Sure, and it certainly makes learning the fretboard easier when you do a lot of reading-in-position exercises, etc. 

I would say that for my money, getting better at using what you already know is something sometimes overlooked. Musicians want to skip on to learning the next phrase, the next chord, etc. Still lots to be mined on the nuance. We don't have to know everything. Billy Gibbons, BB, Lowell George, Maceo...Malcolm Young....all tremendous musicians, mostly sitting in a fairly narrow niche. 

Lewy

Greatape said:

Sporky said:

Not essential, but being able to read and transpose opens up the ability to plunder an incredible wealth of musical ideas. 

Sure, and it certainly makes learning the fretboard easier when you do a lot of reading-in-position exercises, etc. 

I would say that for my money, getting better at using what you already know is something sometimes overlooked. Musicians want to skip on to learning the next phrase, the next chord, etc. Still lots to be mined on the nuance. We don't have to know everything. Billy Gibbons, BB, Lowell George, Maceo...Malcolm Young....all tremendous musicians, mostly sitting in a fairly narrow niche. 

That is absolutely right and I think it's a big problem for a lot of guitarists - the self imposed pressure to be some sort of polymath, even within genres. Very few "great" guitarists were that, they just new what sounds they liked and wanted to make, and found a way of doing that. Much better to be led by desire rather than a sense of obligation to learn certain things and then trying to shoehorn them in.

Greatape

Lewy said:

Greatape said:

Sporky said:

Not essential, but being able to read and transpose opens up the ability to plunder an incredible wealth of musical ideas. 

Sure, and it certainly makes learning the fretboard easier when you do a lot of reading-in-position exercises, etc. 

I would say that for my money, getting better at using what you already know is something sometimes overlooked. Musicians want to skip on to learning the next phrase, the next chord, etc. Still lots to be mined on the nuance. We don't have to know everything. Billy Gibbons, BB, Lowell George, Maceo...Malcolm Young....all tremendous musicians, mostly sitting in a fairly narrow niche. 

That is absolutely right and I think it's a big problem for a lot of guitarists - the self imposed pressure to be some sort of polymath, even within genres. Very few "great" guitarists were that, they just new what sounds they liked and wanted to make, and found a way of doing that. Much better to be led by desire rather than a sense of obligation to learn certain things and then trying to shoehorn them in.

And most who try to be everything end up gaining no appreciable depth in anything, and just sound like dilettantes. But part of that is just general musicianship and most especially a lack of good time/rhythm, an ear for subtleties around the pocket, what's important in a style etc. And you need those fundamentals around harmony in some form, unless perhaps you are playing punk rock. (Which is no diss on punk. I love Bad Religion.)

The real greats do all that and are still individually identifiable. Me, I'd just settle for being a bit less shit every few years. 

allen

I got pointed to this video. Someone learning a fast run live on youtube. It's a trombonist - don't panic.

Very interesting input to the debate.

RocknRollDave

allen said:

I got pointed to this video. Someone learning a fast run live on youtube. It's a trombonist - don't panic.

Very interesting input to the debate.

In a nutshell, he’s saying “Don’t practise fast pieces slowly, because we physically play differently when we play slowly, so it won’t actually help and may hinder your technique.”

My view on it is that, yes, that is true but, for me,  the purpose of the time spent practising slowly is not the same purpose as that of the time spent playing at higher speed.
The former is to learn the notes, get the positioning under my fingers, familiarise myself with WHAT I am playing. The latter is the HOW to play it. 

I, personally, can’t hit the road running until I have mapped out my route slowly, to speak in metaphors.

YMMV

Tannin

Dave_Mc said:

Lewy said:

I also think that quite a lot of people who teach that way believe that's how they got fast but actually it's some other aspect of their musical experience - maybe playing with more advanced players where they had to hold on for dear life for example - that forced the speed, as opposed to what they thought was doing it.

I think that's a problem with teaching in general- I seem to recall reading somewhere that it's a known problem. An expert gets asked how to do what they're an expert in. The expert has largely forgotten what it's like to be a beginner, and proceeds to try to remember how they did it when they were starting out. Or tries to teach it how they feel they should have learnt it (even though they probably didn't learn like that at all).

I mean, look at all those videos on Youtube- "How I wish I'd learnt", or "What I wish I knew back when I was starting out". Almost everyone eventually makes one, and yet it didn't stop them from becoming an expert either, did it?

Something I notice looking at the top football coaches (our football, not the round-ball thing, but the insight is probably the same) is that 9 out of 10 top-flight successful coaches at the highest level were not especially talented players. You see naturally gifted player with skills to die for, players capable of changing the course of a game practically single-handed. They have brilliant careers then retire at 30-something when the body is no longer capable of the demands top-level sport puts on it and quite often go into coaching. Who better to teach the game than the best kick or mark or tackle-maker in the game? 

And 9 times out of 10, they last three or four or five years, win nothing much, and go nowhere. 

Now look at the multi-premiership winning coaches, the ones who take dud teams over and a few years later take then to success. They are nearly always retired players who had a little bit of talent and only got into the top level of competition by working really hard at it, and by figuring out how to extract every last drop of what little talent they had. 

These are the coaches who had to think hard about  (e.g.) the mechanics of kicking a ball accurately or of spoiling a taller, faster opponent. They had to box clever to survive. The gifted players never had to think about it, they don't know how they did it. And what you don't know, you can't teach.

Rocker

Why the obsession with speed?  It is music not Olympic sprinting so put your heart into your playing. 

p90fool

Rocker said:

Why the obsession with speed?  It is music not Olympic sprinting so put your heart into your playing. 

Careful, the fastest typists are the best novelists around here...

EricTheWeary

I think it can also be something to do with our listening and and not just the physical aspects of playing. Going back and forth between what you are playing and what you are listening to until you understand what fits where. You have to be able to hear what's good and bad in what you are playing in order to correct it. And given any different player and any different piece of music that might have a different starting place.

m_c

I will say that's quite an interesting video, but as someone who learnt via Justin's original beginner/intermediate courses, I do remember videos where he encourages you to play faster, even if you make mistakes.

His mantra, which even you agreed with, is don't continually practice the mistakes, as that's when they become permanent.

It's about pushing your limits, but being able to recognise mistakes, and learning what you need to work on, so you can practise those areas, which you typically do by slowing the movement down. You may not do the slowing down physically, as with some of your analogies like throwing darts you can't, but you still do it mentally, and practise the individual movements.

And your swimming faster analogy is a poor example. I've had quite a few swim lessons, and to go faster, you spend a lot of time going slower practising the various movements, so that when you do practise going faster, you have the muscle memory and knowledge to feel what you're doing correct/wrong.
You're correct in that there are certain aspects you can't practice while going slow (things like breathing as at slow speed you don't get that low pocket to make breathing easier), but at slow speed you get time to concentrate on things like how your arm is moving, how your hand enters the water, how your hand/arm moves through the water, how your body rolls, how your feet/legs move.
If you just jump in the water and try to go as fast as possible, all you typically do is create lots of splashing and go quite slow. You need to learn the individual movements that allow you to go as fast as possible with as little effort as possible.

prlgmnr

Rocker said:

Why the obsession with speed?  It is music not Olympic sprinting so put your heart into your playing. 

if someone's heart wants to go fast then they need their hands to be able to go fast too

Lewy

prlgmnr said:

Rocker said:

Why the obsession with speed?  It is music not Olympic sprinting so put your heart into your playing. 

if someone's heart wants to go fast then they need their hands to be able to go fast too

Exactly! Nobody is being macho about it. Nobody is saying that if you can’t play fast you can’t play. And yet there are always people seeking to invalidate discussions about building speed. That’s looks way more like obsession to me.

gordiji

Good points in the vid but a bit of a word salad to compare the two well known approaches to fast playing. However i was shocked that you didn't play single note , i wanted a blaze of glory and got to the end feeling robbed   

PetGerbil

p90fool said:

Rocker said:

Why the obsession with speed?  It is music not Olympic sprinting so put your heart into your playing. 

Careful, the fastest typists are the best novelists around here...

I never understand why people type with more than two fingers ? It's the story that's important! touch typing is a fad that young people get obsessed with...

Dave_Mc

Greatape said:

Surely an expert teacher in any discipline is constantly working on a pedagogy which is exactly suited to whatever level of student is appropriate at that time? Which suggests that quite a few of these YouTube teachers may not be very good teachers yet. 

Admittedly, was a noticeable problem with many lecturers when I was at university (not for music). 

I mean you would hope so, but then again who came up with that pedagogy? (Presumably) another teacher. So you're still in that same circular logic.

What you said about your lecturers reminds me of Professor Farnsworth... 

Tannin

As we used to say re the university staff when I did my GDE (Graduate Diploma of Education, i.e., teacher's certificate) -

Those that can, do.
Those that can't, teach.
Those that can't teach, teach teachers.

Dave_Mc

Tannin said:

Something I notice looking at the top football coaches (our football, not the round-ball thing, but the insight is probably the same) is that 9 out of 10 top-flight successful coaches at the highest level were not especially talented players. You see naturally gifted player with skills to die for, players capable of changing the course of a game practically single-handed. They have brilliant careers then retire at 30-something when the body is no longer capable of the demands top-level sport puts on it and quite often go into coaching. Who better to teach the game than the best kick or mark or tackle-maker in the game? 

And 9 times out of 10, they last three or four or five years, win nothing much, and go nowhere. 

Now look at the multi-premiership winning coaches, the ones who take dud teams over and a few years later take then to success. They are nearly always retired players who had a little bit of talent and only got into the top level of competition by working really hard at it, and by figuring out how to extract every last drop of what little talent they had. 

These are the coaches who had to think hard about  (e.g.) the mechanics of kicking a ball accurately or of spoiling a taller, faster opponent. They had to box clever to survive. The gifted players never had to think about it, they don't know how they did it. And what you don't know, you can't teach.

Yeah. I think that applies to a lot of sports, and even a lot of things. You have to be good enough at the subject or you can't teach it- but you can also be too good. (Thinking back to school, some of the worst teachers were the ones who were no good at the subject, but so were some of the ones who clearly were really good!) As you said, if you were just a natural at it, that hardly helps you teach it! A lot of people (me included) often try to just copy what the "best" people do- but that's not necessarily the best approach. If someone really good hardly ever practised because they didn't need to, does that mean that copying that, if you aren't as naturally gifted, is a good idea? You're getting into a similar paradox to the one I mentioned about the flaw in teaching in general...

Of course, that doesn't mean that if you *are* really good at the subject that you're necessarily a bad teacher, too. I think some people are just better at teaching, it's a skill in itself too.

Dave_Mc

PetGerbil said:

p90fool said:

Rocker said:

Why the obsession with speed?  It is music not Olympic sprinting so put your heart into your playing. 

Careful, the fastest typists are the best novelists around here...

I never understand why people type with more than two fingers ? It's the story that's important! touch typing is a fad that young people get obsessed with...

My mum was a typing teacher. I don't think it's a modern fad... it's very useful, or at least it was pre-computers. Granted, you don't need it as much now (and she had to convert to teaching word processing, lol).

Eartrumpet

I am a complete cabbage when it comes to fast passages and phrases. 

 i have played for 30 odd years and still cannot play fast or fluid passages. 
Having tried pretty much all the approaches in this thread I still cant get my left hand speed and right hand picking co ordinated at speed. 

I have just excepted it now and stay within my limits as much as i would like to play faster at times

Philly_Q

Honestly, I've never practiced hard enough to have a strong opinion on this, but I've read the thread with interest.

It seems to me that both sides are really saying the same thing, but with different emphasis.

No-one who recommends learning a phrase slowly says you should play it slowly forever - they're just saying make sure you learn the part first, then push it, try to play it faster.  From the other side, presumably no-one's suggesting you should jump straight in at 240bpm and keep plugging away until you get it right.  That will just lead to frustration.