I've realised that all the pieces I veer towards playing are of a similar tempo, ie "comfortable" I need to learn to play faster pieces, but I'm not quite sure how best to learn. I think the problem is partly that I can't read the notes and communicate what I've read to my fingers fast enough, which makes me wonder if to play fast you need to memorise the piece rather than play from the score; and it's also partly a problem of my fingers physically not moving fast enough - they seem to "stick"

Has anyone please got any advice, comments or even commiserations

To play faster practice the piece slowly, at a speed where you make no mistakes and gradually over time build up the speed. Once the piece is in your head and muscle memory starts to take over speed will develop naturally.

Maybe use a metronome once you know the piece well and build up the speed in small increments.

Only commiserations skylark!

If you find the answer - let me know!


A

I second what Ms Fiddle said. It is extremely important to play it slowly first and know it well otherwise you will limit how fast you can play things.

I don't have a problem reading the notes at speed (I can play faster on the piano than on the oboe). My problem is partly getting the fingers to move fast enough but mainly co-ordinating tonguing and fingering.

I play it at a speed I am comfortable with with a metronome. Then I gradually increase the metronome speed, making sure that I am still playing cleanly (ie with the correct articulation). This does, however, take time since the following day I can never start again at the speed at which I stopped the previous day.

If one particular patch is causing trouble than I play just two notes at speed and then gradually add on the extra notes one at a time. Occasionally for really tricky fingerings I just play the same few notes over and over again. I have got a book of fingering exercices but I find them so boring that I probably don't play them regularly enough.

Make sure you are breathing properly. If you are tense about trying to play fast and breathing too shallowly then your muscles are not getting enough oxygen and your fingers will be sluggish.

Purely psychological but I have found that just thinking about playing with a faster airstream does mean I play faster, although I don't know if this applies to the clarinet where air-pressure is not so much of an issue.

Intuitively one feels that the best way must be to play it slowly at first and gradually increase the speed. Certainly that's what I do. But there is a school of thought which says this is wrong, because the physical movements involved in playing something fast are different from those involved in playing it slowly: so if you learn it slowly to begin with, you are having to re-learn it as you increase speed. I have no idea whether this is right, but I've seen it said more than once. I don't really know how the proponents of this theory suggest you learn something which you can't yet play at the right speed.

I forgot to say earlier that for some reason varying the rhythm also helps to speed things up (no idea why). What I mean is that instead of playing even quavers (or semi-quavers) play dotted quaver, semi-quaver, dotted quaver, semi- quaver, etc. then swap round and play semi-quaver, dotted quaver etc.

I also think, although I am no expert, that if you play it faster than you can manage all sorts of mistakes occur, so I am on the side of learn it slowly and then build up the speed gradually because at least you will know the notes properly.

You might find that choosing a fast piece which is a little below your current level is a good starting point.

I tend also to be of the "start slowly and build speed gradually" brigade.

Not sure you necessarily need to memorise everything - but you certainly need to know the notes really securely I think. If there are hesitations it's unlikely to go smoothly.

Kerioboe is right - rhythm variation works very well, especially dotting one way and then the other. It trains the fingers to go fast just for pairs of notes, then when you dot the other way, the intermediate pairs - and the result is that the whole thing can then go pretty much as fast as the shortest note you've been playing.
Independently from fingers - if playing woodwind, it's worth practising tonguing away from the instrument - I've found I get tired less quickly now I can double-tongue, but even single tonguing can be improved by saying t-t-t-t- or d-d-d-d- along to whatever you're listening to, just by building up stamina. It used to be that tonguing was what determined how fast I could go, now it is definitely fingers, but I still practise both ways.

Starting slowly, and gradually speeding it up is the way I go about things too.

Ocassionally, I'll aim to get a piece/section of a piece a little faster than it should go, then I'll peg it back to the right speed. The right speed will then seem psychologically easier to me.

Agree 100% with anacrusis and kerioboe's suggestions... starting slow and building up gradually, rhythms, etc...


This is, IMO, where things like splurting pairs or several notes at a time comes in really handy, as kerioboe describes pairs of notes... I practise each pair as fast as possible, then 3 notes at a time, and so on... as described here though I'm sure there have been better descriptions, but this is the one I could quickly find. Anyway - it doesn't just work with scales, it seems to work with anything that needs to go fast, and even the accuracy of something that doesn't need to go fast, but needs to speed up a little. I've used this on all sorts of scales and passages and it really helps. Can be dead boring but very effective!! And because you are practising the transitions at speed, you aren't "learning to play it slowly" if you see what I mean.

edit: Andante's explanation is I think rather clearer. Or here. She's far better at explaining it than me


I do that on piano!! Yes, it seems to help...

Do you think in phrases rather than notes or bars?
Having the idea of a whole phrase can help towards more fluency and appropriate tempo.

Slowly increasing the metronome is good as far as it goes
but doesn't provide everything you might need to play fast. This
helps me more with maintaining correct rhythm at different speeds

I've been given a piece that I have to play fast, and here are the drills. You are meant to keep in the
pedalling and the poetry

note: this is a piece with endless semi-quavers in groups of 4

1) play first note, stop and count for 4 fast semi-quavers worth, then next four really fast, stop and count, next 4 really fast etc etc to the end
2) play first 2 notes, count to 4, then next 4 really fast, stop and count . etc etc
3) play first 3 notes, stop and count etc etc
4) play first 4 really fast, stop and count play next 4........

The idea is to get pinpoint accuracy with speed.

More generally for less rhythmically repetitive pieces:
5) play whole thing really slowly......but with the muscle motions as if you were playing fast. I think of this
as ``tai chi" (very slow motion martial arts) This kind of slow practice is "money in the bank"

Then there's cod liver oil pills for supple finger joints

Thank you everybody for the advice. I've printed it out and I've been studying it. I understand the advice about playing slowly and building up. I've been guilty of expecting to be able to play something at the correct speed, even if it's fast, right from the start


kerioboe and anacrusis, can I check something with you please.... you've both recommended to play alternative rhythms, but normally you wouldn't practise something "the wrong way" as this is reinforcing the wrong message. If you play alternative rhythms, do you still find it easy enough to go back to playing the correct rhythm when you're ready?


loops, would you mind clarifying something....

I don't really understand how this works, but you've obviously found it useful so I'd like to try. Are you able to explain it again using the code for 4 groups of 4 semiquavers below, eg play A1 then count for A2, A3, A4, B1 etc...

A1234 B1234 C1234 D1234

Sorry to be a bit dim on this




The only thing which gives me some encouragement on playing faster is that I learnt to touch-type a long time ago and I can type really fast. I keep telling myself that once I know my instrument as well as I know a keyboard, I'll be able to play fast as well On the downside, using that same logic, it will take years to play at the same speed as I can type


This business of playing faster has caused me to rethink my whole "strategy". I realised when I got some of the Grade 4 books, including the one with the CD, that the required speed of many of the pieces seems to be a long way beyond my current level of expertise. It was in the back of my mind that I would probably do G4 in the Spring session, but listening to the speed of some of the pieces on the CD (eg James Rae's Catch it, if anyone knows that one) has made me want to forget about G4 for the foreseeable future I'll talk to my teacher about it next week, who'll either be pleased/relieved that I don't want to do the exam any time soon, or will tell me that I'm over-reacting....


In the meantime, thanks Sarah-flute for the links to "splurting" (looks a good idea ) and "The Practice Revolution". I've seen the book on PracticeSpot, but I've never bought it partly because it's aimed at teachers and partly because I don't have any problem being motivated to practise, which seems to be the premise of the book. Having said that, I've realised that I could practise more intelligently and productively, so I've ordered the book and it should be delivered in about a week's time


Thanks again everybody who's given advice.

I see now from your question that I wasn't clear. You play all the notes, but with added pauses
So 1) goes as
A1 (pause) 234B1 (pause) 234C1 (pause) etc
while 2) goes
A12 (pause) 34B12 (pause)34C12 (pause) etc

Also the runs of 4 notes are fast
I guess it's not a million miles from altering the rhythm. The length of the pause is as for 4 notes
so that you are maintaining the correct pulse of the piece. You're also meant to maintain the loud/soft,
the pedal and everything else.

I guess if you had notes in groups of 6 there would be 2 more variations on the drill.

It really helps with obtaining accuracy with speed. The pauses give you time to get sorted. You need to do
all the variations so you get accuracy at every point of the piece. I think this is the answer to your question
about practicing something that's incorrect; ie you need to vary the variations so one doesn't get embedded.

Oh and VERY important - always use the same fingering.

I had other drills, like
A121234B121234C121234 etc
and
A123234B123234C123234 etc
and A123434B123434C123434 etc
with the doubled-up notes done at twice the speed of the others (to maintain the correct pulse of the piece)
To do this fluently you have to be consciously aware of the fingering of every note and the correct hand position
as well.

I agree speeds on CDs are scary. Angela Hewitt plays Bach's Invention No 4 in about 43 seconds.
I would think she's been playing it for 20 years maybe?
I've decided I can't worry about it.

I thought this was supposed to improve evenness rather than just speed things up - either way, it's a good idea.


I've found this is a very good idea, but it's important not to go so fast that you lose accuracy/evenness. As I approach a performance I like to check the whole piece against a metronome - sometimes I play sections at slightly different speeds without being aware of it. It's fine to vary speed if you know what you're doing, but sometimes errors creep in without your noticing!

Generally one practises it "both ways round", ie dotted quaver-semiquaver and semiquaver-dotted quaver (if that makes sense. It works (I think...) because the longer note gives you a little more thinking time, but the faster notes make you practise all those transitions quickly - which is also why you need to do it both ways round. And I have never had a problem putting something back to even quavers/semiquavers/whatever. I think the whole "practising wrong" thing is largely for more complex rhythms, where it's easy to hear something wrong and your ear gets caught in that rut, if you know what I mean. Whereas with something reasonably simple (in rhythmic terms) like runs of semiquavers, your brain knows full well that the dotted rhythm isn't right, so you're unlikely to get tangled up that way.

Make any sense?? Probably not but if it's any reassurance, this is one instance where I've not heard that people playing "the wrong way" has troubled them when playing the right way. As Berkshire mum says, it's something that people use to improve evenness, strange maybe but true, so I don't think it's something you should be worried about messing with the evenness of your playing


Don't worry too much about the speed, in my experience a lot of the speeds are down to "personal interpretation" on the part of the recording artist, rather than being a prescribed speed for that piece in that exam.


Hope you find the book helpful, and look forward to hearing how you get on with "splurts" (You'll be happy to know I am currently using splurts in an effort to learn an Ian Clarke flute piece )

Whereas with something reasonably simple (in rhythmic terms) like runs of semiquavers, your brain knows full well that the dotted rhythm isn't right, so you're unlikely to get tangled up that way.

Make any sense?? Probably not

No, yes I think it does make sense.

(or should that be yes, no ...! )

Well, glad it made sense to you, Maggie!

(You should probably be worried about that though )

Yep, S-F has explained it correctly - if you have a run of fast quavers, and try playing it first dotted-quaver-semiquaver all the way along, then semiquaver-dotted quaver all along, then all in quavers again, what you are doing is not imprinting a "wrong" rhythm, but rather training your fingers to move as quickly as you need if you want to up the speed. Sure, if you only did the one rhythm time and time again, you might ingrain an incorrect pattern, but by doing it first one way, then another, you won't, you'll simply teach your fingers to shift neatly and more readily through the notes. In fact, I'll usually give the one rhythm about three or four tries before reversing it, trying to get everything as tidy as it could possibly be before turning it all upside down, but everyone is different here, and you may find you prefer to alternate between the two until it is right. Whilst you're trying this technique, you may also discover the odd note change which sticks out as being particularly troublesome, so you can then focus down on that for a little while if needed.
I am lucky in that I can read music relatively quickly (hence the total inability to memorise ) - but I think you should also find that once your fingers can do the shifts from note to note more quickly, you'll also be reading at a matching improved speed.

Reading music wise - I meant to write this before but forgot! You will start to read music in bigger chunks, ie not c-d-e-f-g-a-b-c- but "oh, C major!" - not necessarily consciously, but things like scale and arpeggio passages won't look like a big bunch of random notes but almost as units... you know what's coming next, not every note is separately decoded. And if you practise a complex passage in chunks by splurting/uneven notes etc etc till it's up to speed, you'll also probably not read every single note as a single unit as you play it - you'll read the line of notes as a kind of unit and you'll know what to do.

Hmmm, don't know if that makes sense either, but what I mean to say is, playing a whole bunch of demisemiquavers doesn't necessarily mean you have to see, decipher, and play each of those notes consciously and seperately. You don't read each letter separately when you see a word you are familiar with . As fluency improves, a similar thing will apply to reading music.

The disadvantage of this is when the music doesn't quite conform to expectations. In the Saint-Saens Sonata, which I have justed started learning, there are two sharps in the key signature and a two octave run starting and ending on a D; at speed my fingers refuse to see the natural sign in front of the two Cs and play a D major scale regardless.

I can relate to this, I find music theory as applied to actual pieces completely puzzling.
I tend to think, "this bit, oh yes, now that bit".
I see the sense in what sarah-flute is saying, but music is like english spelling, seemingly
random unless you know at least 2 ancient and 3 modern languages from which the words
were pinched derive....

Yes, I can understand that - but like English spelling, I think things become more and more natural as one goes through, practises, and gets used to how things work. (Though I think music makes more sense than English spelling!! )

I have a couple of pieces which kind of illustrate what I mean - one is an Ian Clarke flute piece which has a few runs which don't relate to obvious scalic patterns... practising them by splurting etc till they are fluent means that when I get to them I don't go "argh! so many notes!", my brain goes, oh, this bit, I know this bit! So while I follow the lines of notes with my eyes I don't read each note separately.

The other is a Saint-Saens piece which I keep forgetting about then going back to, the Romance (op37??) - this has a lot of runs that look really scary, but when I look closely, here's a chromatic scale, here's a scale in such-and-such a key, here's a scale of this with extra accidentals here... or whatever, so on and so on.

I think the "seeing D-to-D and playing D major" might be a stumbling block (but I guess shows why one is advised to play scales starting on different notes than usual) but is still easier than if one was reading d-e-f#-g-a-b-c-d and so on as a bunch of unrelated, separate notes. Knowing "it's G major played between two Ds" is a good start...

This has never happened to me before, which is why it is annoying me. In the same piece, a few bars before this one is another (almost two octave) run going from B to A but actually in D major and my fingers play that quite happily without attempting to add in three extra sharps.

I'm beginning to wonder if my strategy of not trying to learn my scales might actually help me on this one....as I learn more repertoire, more sets of note-patterns become "automatic", and as long as I know how the melody goes, I can learn chunks of music more quickly for having played similar before. Scale passages start to fall under the fingers most quickly, arpeggiated ones slightly more slowly, and the ones with odd sections which don't match anything in the technical exercise repertoire (let's face it, they usually outweigh the others) may need a few slow play-through attempts to get right, but will then work and not cause bother. More difficult are the shifts where horrible multiple finger changes happen at once (very common on the recorder ) - they need the most painstaking work to get right. I'm playing lots of Bach at the moment, with modulations everywhere, and pretend modulations which turned out not to be - that's when I have to work hardest to remember key signatures, and I will often pencil in a sharp above a note if I'm forgetting to play it.

How infuriating.

I have to say, I've never had this problem that I can remember and knowing my scales has absolutely contributed towards me reading and playing more fluently. I guess it's just one of those random mental blocks we all get from time to time which don't necessarily have any logic to them.

I wonder if learning my modal scales for jazz has helped - it's weird but satisfying thing to play two octaves of notes in the "wrong" key signature... feels a bit like being on a high wire as I'm never convinced I'm not just going to suddenly revert to a major scale mid flow...

Ah, I understand now. Thanks, I'll give it a go, and the other drill you mentioned as well.



Dare I say I look forward to hearing it some day



Ah, yes, I take your point about the rhythm only being imprinted if you do the same thing over and over again, thanks



What you've said makes a lot of sense, and I'm sure you're right, but I find it quite scary all the same. I do sometimes find that I'm playing something on automatic, without reading the notes, but it does scare me I think it's because I'm afraid that next time I come to play it, the automatic bit won't come and then I'll be stuck... I guess this is a hurdle I'll get over the more I do it But it's a good analogy to use reading - I remember asking my teacher shortly after I'd started learning if he could read music as easily as reading a book and the answer was yes.... Sadly I'm still on the musical equivalent of Thomas the Tank Engine


Thanks everybody for the advice, it's been really really useful

*grin* that is my tentative hope/plan!

Presumably you started with the reading equivalent of Thomas the Tank Engine (or even easier!) when you started learning to read and write... and look at you know, reading and answering posts about complex aspects of reading music without batting an eyelid or turning a hair, or indeed just thinking how amazing it is that you brain interprets all of these strange black marks into meaning which you can answer with other strange black marks, or could read out and turn into sound if you wanted to pass them on to someone else... it's taken for granted that of course you will understand it.

Same with reading music. It will come in time keep up the good work

edit: & be kind to yourself about it - you've only been playing a few years - far as I can see you're doing just fine. You will get there!

Yes, I'll second that. I find it works particularly well on the violin and encourages nice quick 'springy' fingers.

You want to be able to play quickly:

For piano:

1. Memorise the fast pasages. Until you are a concert virtuoso it is asking too much to read the score, translate it into hand movements, and execute those movements fast and accurate. You need all your attention focussed on the act of making the notes. We all play memorised pieces with greater fluency than we sight read, or than we play partially memorised pieces from the score.

2. Practice hands separate. It is much easier to reach the target speed when you are not also trying to coordinate two major limbs.

3. Sort out the fingering. It has to be possible at the target speed, contribute to the correct phrasing, volume, touch etc., and be non-injurious. Everyone has different hands and fingers, so do not automatically assume that the fingering in your student edition is right for you. Most of it will be right for most pianists, but some parts may need revision. Once you are confident iof the fingering pencil it in and use the exact same fingering every time you play. Even varying the fingering of a single note can throw you when you are giving a performance.

4. Practice slowly. This adds to a purely musical and aural musical memory with some of the kinaesthetics that will eventually transfer to playing at speed. It also ensures that you don't get into the habit of varying the tempo according to difficulty, plasying wrong notes repeatedly, stopping at the same tricky bit etc. etc.

5. Use the correct technique. The objective is not to sound good at a slow speed. It is to make arm/hand/finger actions that will give the correct results when executed at the target speed. An often used analogy is the different gaits of a horse. A gallop is a gallop - not a fast canter. For a specific example if you are aiming at Allegro or Presto legato passage work don't practice with a slow Legato as if it were an Adagio. In slow practice the notes need to be slightly detached. When you speed up they will run together. You also need to think about large scale arm movements and changes of hand position and make those in a manner that will be both effecgtive and possible at a much higher speed.

6. DO NOT start slow and build up speed. That only works for less demanding pieces. Or if you already have good enough technique to master the target speed (See related point 5). It does not work as a method of developing such technique. First make sure that the section is properly memorised and firmly in your fingers at slow speeds. Then jump immediately to short sections (hands separate at first) at the target speed.

7. Become aware of unnecessary tensions that restrict your free movement. Consciously relax those tensions

8. Once you know the piece well, and can play it from memopry without great strain, think in chunks and passages rather than individual notes. Your fingers can play sequence that they have learned faster than your conscious mind can think over the individual notes

9. Mentally rehearse the piece away from the keyboard. Not just the sound but all the physical movements too - without actually moving, but mentally the same experience AS IF you were actually playing

10. Often it is just a handful of awkward turns, jumps etc. that make fast play impossible. Or perhaps a single technique that is then repeatedly executed slightly differently. To overcome these make technical exercises of very short sections - even of a jump between two notes. Play them over and over until they no longer present a problem, then put them back into context.

what a great list Mad Tom, especially 7,8 and 10, this is exactly what I've been doing. Also



is exactly what I mean by "tai chi"-ing your music


So my teacher today was very happy with my speedy-gonzales Alkan miniature, despite minor stumbles