I'm playing a couple of fairly fast songs, and I find that they sound quite rushed and I often feel like I'm not keeping in time. I also have a bit of a problem with trills.

I've only been playing for a year, so obviously I don't expect my playing to be perfect (well I do I suppose, as I am a perfectionist when it comes to playing the piano ), and I countless amounts of times I have gone over the parts slowly.

I was wondering if anyone has any tips on how to improve fast playing and playing trills etc in general.....I assume scales and other things like that will help strength and control? Any suggestions will be really appreciated!

Laura

For fast quaver/semiquaver passages, practise them with dotted rhythms: dotted quaver-semiquaver etc.
For things like trills and tremolos, the Hanon studies helped me a lot - they're a pain but the do actually work

very true. Also try playing it slowly over and over until your fingers know where to go, then it will be easier when you speed it up.

Scales,scales and more scales!! Practice them everyday with increaing speed everyday using a metronome and before you know it you will be playing presto!!

I agree that dotting is the best way to get neat and quick - but don't just dot one way. If you play dotted quaver-semiquaver first, then repeat playing semiquaver-dotted quaver. It sounds mad that playing deliberately unevenly should help, but it does - try it. It works just as well for trills as it does for scaley and apreggio-y bits.

Don't think of each individual note in a quick passage as being an event in itself. If you've got, say, a run of semiquavers in 4/4, think of a "unit" as being four notes, and make sure that it takes one beat to play each of these units. In this example, four things happen in a bar rather than sixteen. If you think of a bar in terms of one ... two ... three ... four ... you'll be able to think more clearly - and your muscles will be more relaxed and your fingers more fluent - than if you think ONE!TWO!THREE!FOUR!FIVE!SIX!SEVEN!EIGHT!NINE!TEN!ELEVEN!TWELVE!THIRTEEN!FOURTEEN!FIFTEEN!SIXTEEN!GASP!!

In order to clean up messy passages, one should approach the passages in several different ways:
1) Practise slowly and increase the tempo only gradually, with the help of a metronome.
2) Practise with dotted rhythm, first with long-short-long-short rhythm, then with short-long-short-long rhythm (which is harder to do).
3) Consider several notes as a unit.
4) The reverse of #3: Consider quaver or even semiquaver subdivisions. When students rush through a passage, it is usually because they haven't acquired good control over the fingers and haven't been able to feel a consistent pulse. Thinking in subdivision will help to solve the problems.

As for trills, one should practise them as measured trills at first. Again, think in subdivision may help.

My teacher always said to me on one of my pieces "You do go phnomnely (if thats how you spell it) fast!"

AND THAT WAS MY GRADE PEICE

I attemted to slow it down but it went
Fast
slow
fast
midi
fast!

With the control just be confident with your piece, don't let the fast problem get in controll.
Strength I duno really.
Fast- Play it quite slow at first, then go abit faster untill you get to the right speed (Don't play slow to your Teacher though!)
Put your metronme on (if you have one)and listnen to that, play it to the rythem, Not how you think it should go!

I always used to find playing scale passages difficult, but I was taught a couple of things that have really helped.

Firstly break the difficult passages into easier chunks. Play each chunk slowly concentrating on the fingering and making sure that you know exactly where your going with the next note. Then I play each chunk with different rhythms, eg first play each chunk with the 1st and 3rd notes dotted, then play the other way round. Varying the rhythms ensures that you really know the order of notes as you have to concentrate on the rhythms.

Once you are able to play each chunk successfully, then try putting them together slowly. As you get more confident bring up the speed using a metronome.

If when doing this you still find bits that go wrong (a feeling I know well!) then don't ignore it, take it right back to the beginning. As I have found, the worst thing you can do is get into the habit of allowing mistakes because it can really mess up your muscle memory and make it even more difficult to correct in the long term.

Most importantly, don't play the piece fast if you cannot play it correctly slow. You really need to make sure that you know the piece back to front before you attempt to really bring up the speed!

I once had a masterclass with an examiner and university lecturer of some description, and in my pieces there were a series of fast passages... A lot of the recommendations have been mentioned, but I quite like the concept of "armchair practise"

When people are bored, its often stereotyped that they tap their fingers in a fast movement across the fingers... Wherever you are, keep those fingers moving- on the bus, at your desk, etc. It will make those fingers sutble enough to do those fast passages with ease (according to the teather )

And slow practise, but I daresay that idea has been flogged enough

It sounds picky, but do make sure your fingers are completely curved - it's just more controlled!