Doing my Grade 8 Piano and I can play almost note perfect but only at half speed! How can I get faster?

constant practice with care... seperate hands... then together... afterwards..increase the speed gradually...

Keep Playing at half speed until you are 100% secure, then try one of two things. Either, speed it up gradually, each time checking whether you are still secure in playing it or, just try playing it about half as fast again immediately. If you feel confident and secure there is no reason why you shouldn't be able to get it near to full or at full speed almost straight away.
If I have learnt a piece 100% secure at half speed, I can pretty much play it at top speed straight away. You just might be able to do it too. Have a go, have confidence and dont worry if you dont get it right first time. Eventually you will.

Gae

do lots of finger excercises to build up their strength. ask your teacher to give you a book of excercises !!
love Ellie x

Hello Noelle,

Are you self-teaching or being taught, because this is really something your teacher should be looking at.

We all have our methods for speeding up performance but by the level you're at, some analysis might be needed re what your hands are doing now as opposed to what they would be doing at full speed - not the same, be assured. For one thing, we relax more at slower speeds.

If it's a control thing or your fingers/hands simply won't go fast enough (to do even an approximation of full-speed), you have to work at the control/finger independence issue - I posted some tests/exercises a while ago to be done away from the keyboard.

Also, did you do G7? Because things aren't that much worse and if you were up to performance standard then you should be able to use similar tactics to get your current pieces up to scratch.
Good luck
R

I think one of the ones is to use metronome....increase the speed of it slowly day by day or every few days and will bring you back to speed.....or you could buy that particular piece of music on cd and play along...

Just practice!
Try using a metromome to gradually increase your speed. Set a target of increasing your speed slowly bit by bit each week.

Practise! I'm afraid it's the only answer: just increase the tempo of your performances a tiny bit each time you play - don't go for broke and double the speed suddenly. I think you will then find that, gradually, you can up the tempo of your programme provided that all the technical work has been done and is secure.

If I might be so bold - something seems amiss here. By grade 8 one should have a good idea of one's capabilities, limitations and so on.

There is a case for practicising very slowly then trying it as fast as possible, a mere approximation - then reverting to slow but a little faster than before. . .Allows you to find out what your hands need to do at full speed - like I said, that'll be different from playing slowly.

However, that's not really an option here as Noelle may be unable to analyse her own technique. (Forgive me if I'm wrong - no offence meant - just being practical). Best to take the metronome tips and ask your teacher.

QUOTE (Noelle @ Nov 19 2004, 11:16 PM)

Doing my Grade 8 Piano and I can play almost note perfect but only at half speed!   How can I get faster?

Don't worry just practise and you will automatically increase towards the correct speed.

Oh, and yes, there seems to be a metronome mark in allegro moderato (B2) for Grade 8 2005-6 that seems really slow (quaver=116) I play it at quaver=152 somehow! Is this acceptable??