I have a problem. I play fast pieces too slowly. I play accurately but I need to learn to play faster because it cost me marks in my recent grade 7 exam. I've tried notching up metronome speeds gradually. This works to some extent but it gets monotonous. Has anybody else any other suggestions for moving me out of my comfort zone?

What happens when you try to go faster? If your fingers simply can't get to the notes that you know they should be playing, it's a technique problem and you'll need to do some exercises to fix it. If you reach a certain bar and you find yourself reading - or visualising - a sort of grey cloud which the notes are hiding behind, you're overloading your brain (choosing terms carefully here!) because you don't know that section well enough to play through it without reading every note.

For a given section it's going to be one of these things or the other. Identifying which one it is will be a very good start

I think it is partly habit. There is a speed at which I am happy - say about 90 bpm - and I seem to apply it to any piece with a lively tempo because I know I can play that comfortably. The target speed is actually 100. When I push myself I make mistakes. I know it is not musical to have a one-size-fits-all tempo but that's what I seem to be doing.

I think part of the problem is in my head because part of me is convinced that at the advanced age of 41 I can't learn to play any faster. This doesn't make sense because I learned all the notes for my grade 7 pieces. The examiner didn't fault me for note accuracy at all and I did all that having come back to the piano after a twenty year break.

What I need are some technical exercises that will take me a little time - not too much time - to master so that I can build up enough stamina to play pieces at the proper tempo. I really badly need exercises in which I can see myself making progress because I'm fighting against the temptation to give up the quest for speed. A bit of me thinks I'm too old aged 41 to go at anything other than a pedestrian speed.

I am also considering muscular tension. I think I tense up when I try to play fast. I can't believe I'm going to do it.

I hope that explains the problem a bit more clearly.

I've kind of discovered it's to do with what beats your counting, if you continue counting crotchets in 4/4 when your going at 180 bpm your brain just can't cope, so I count a slower beat, i.e. minums, and then make sure the note which should be on the minum beat is there, and most of the others slot into place - I don't know if it would work but a suggestion!

I want to learn to play superfast so I can play self-indulgent keyboard solos in a prog-rock act,
Any suggestions?

Not ... entirely, no. You mean it's definitely physical? You can think through the piece at the faster tempo but your fingers won't co-operate?

And about this age business - I saw Shura Cherkassky (a man with notably short and stubby fingers) playing a concert when he was in his late 80s and he damn straight wasn't having a problem with tempo, so I think he'd have given short shrift to a whippersnapper of 41 complaining about it



Just sit on the thing.

Sounds to me like there isn't a problem with you but rather you're just lacking a bit of patience on the issue . Please don't be too keen to resign yourself to not being able to do if, for whatever reason, and certainly not because of age. Ultimately it does take time to speed things up and one has to be patient and do it gradually. If it is really genuinely taking you far longer than you're happy with then one way to deal with it is to go for some easier fast pieces to get yourself some confidence and find something that takes less time; then build up the difficulty again from there .

I‘ve been trying to wean myself out of this particular comfort zone too over the past year or so. I was becoming addicted to adagios and avoiding anything above a gentle andante!
Here are some approaches that are helping me;
I learned to learn by heart (which was another thing I thought I’d never be able to do). Eyes glued to the score definitely was slowing me down. Now I can look at my hands when I need to, which I find really helps especially when there’s speed combined with jumps.
Make sure your fingering is compatible with speed goals, it’s not always the most obvious fingering that is best. How are your body/arm movements helping or hindering? Teacher input is so helpful here in spotting tension or inappropriate movements.
Practice small sections eg 2 or 3 bars hands separately at speeds significantly higher than your target speed.
Try to increase speeds over small sections, not forcing the whole piece.
You’re right about tension, it really is a total enemy of speed … slow relaxed practice, patience, really helps; without really trying your speed will increase, just check your metronome speed after a few days of this and you may be surprised.
Playing passages in different rhythms is one approach that also consistently helps me.
Don’t always just notch the metronome up in regular steps, try going up a few notches than back down (say, up 5 and back 3)
Every now and then just go for it and enjoy … you may get further than you think!
The suggestion to try some easier pieces to build up confidence is sound. In Scarlatti for example there’s a virtually never ending supply of lovely pieces at all levels, mostly marked allegro but capable of many interpretations. I believe many of these sonatas were actually written as exercises for his royal pupil, absolutely stunning stuff.
Lastly I try to remind myself of someone’s very true quote that goes something like, “if you think you can, you can; if you think you can’t, you can’t.”

I’m getting there bit by bit …. And I’m older than you!!

I always find that if I play as fast as I can, without noticing mistakes at the start, and then correcting the mistakes and putting all the texture, dynamics etc. later, gets some good results, AND an up to speed piece.

Playing very quickly is probably one of my strong points, but I do remember a time when it wasn't the case, and I too got really bored with just pushing the metronome up a notch every time! If you're able to play accurately at a tempo that's less than it should be, then try playing the whole thing at the same tempo, but staccato. You might find that this means you'll be able to get the clarity that you might be losing at a faster pace when you go back to legato. Your fingers get more exercise when playing staccato, if you concentrate on lifting them up well. Try staccato scales and arpeggios as well. (That's if the piece is not meant to be staccato in the first place!) If it's simply a question of getting the notes right, then that's different, but if it's a clarity problem, try the staccato idea. You could also look at some of the Czerny studies -'clarity in velocity', or similar, I think is the title of one.

Scale practice could be the perfect solution.I know people always talk about regular scale practice but it really does work.I practice my scales to warm up every practice session and the helps build up stamina and speed! Good luck.

how do you get faster at playing trills?

Hee hee. I asked that one myself not so long ago, both here and on another forum. I found consistency a problem, and I took on board all that was suggested. Eventually I found that what helped me most was to consciously drop/relax the shoulder of the arm that had the trill. I'm sure different things work for different people, but this was the one thing that made the biggest difference to me. I then found myself - after lots of practice, obviously - able even to get faster/slower/crescendo/diminuendo in a trill. Try messing around with what fingers you use as well; it's possible to change fingers in the course of a trill to enable yourself to get into it smoothly with whatever fingers the previous notes dictate, and then switch to fingers that are easier to wiggle quickly. (Next thread - how do you improve your technical terminology... )

It's a question of having enough tension in the fingers to be able to control the trill but not so much that you start tensing up. Not an easy balance to achieve but once you've done it you're sorted for life.

A change of fingering might also help - it's a personal thing so you have to experiment with that one. The ideal situation, though, is that you have enough finger strength (through practice) to be able to use any adjacent pair of fingers.

One of the most amazing trills I've ever seen was during a session by a fabulous salsa band called (I think) Del Camino. The keyboard player played this incredibly fast trill using his third and fourth fingers, which I would have avoided myself if at all possible. I was gobsmacked.

Practice, practice, pracitce. There's no other way.

If it's any consolation, Rhu, I struggle to get things up to the right speeds and I have 13 less years' worth of excuses!

I tend to use the metronome method, practice troublesome bars in isolation, (and sometimes whole sections hands separate, without or without metronome) and occasionally (when I've done some solid practice) just going ###### for leather at the correct tempo to see what holds together (I'm often surprised at how much does).

I'm sure it's at least partly just a confidence issue thinking "my fingers just can't move that fast!". Focused practice is all I've found to help

Hi Rhu

Don't know how people will receive this but I am dipping into a book called the Inner Game of Music at the moment. Like a lot of 'self help' things it has far too many words in it... But it does have a lot of non-technical advice about playing in ways that don't come naturally - whether that is fast, or with a particular tone, or with a confidence you maybe don't feel...

Not a substitute for all the technique building work of scales and studies but possibly another way of approaching things.

(Omega 3 for those finger joints might be good too!!)

Good luck!
Hils