You've been learning a new piece for a few days and you're practicing slowly just to
learn the notes.
Have you ever wondered when is a good time to start to increase the tempo?
Is there a particular method to follow to ensure we're not just wasting time but actually
moving towards playing the full piece at full speed asap?
Hi I'm Jazer!
Before we get into the secret of how to get to full speed asap ,make sure you like and
subscribe to this channel to stay in touch with more of these free piano lessons and
tutorials.
Now the short answer to increasing the tempo of your piece is you should practice at a
slightly faster speed every day, so long as you can play each and every note accurately.
Now that's so important i need to just say that one more time.
You should practice at a slightly faster speed every day to challenge yourself, so long as
you can play each and every note accurately.
The common mistake I see students make is they just increase the speed of their piece
every day without much thought.
They think "Oh, as long as I play a little bit faster every day, it must mean I'm improving".
But this is far from the case.
If you just increase your tempo every day without much thought, you will encounter this
problem.
So let's say, day one you start with something like this...
...and over time you start to increase the speed.
And what a lot of students do is they just mindlessly increase the tempo,
without giving much thought to something that's so important in piano music - and that's called
clarity.
As you just heard of what I played there, even though it kind of sounds like the original
piece, I played.
It sounds muddy and not very clear.
And if you're not practicing in a way where your notes are clear and you're doing practice
wrongly unfortunately.
If you've watched some of the other content in this channel, you will know that I have
said multiple times that practicing wrongly actually does more harm to you than good.
I did an entire video on why practicing sometimes can be a bad thing.
And the short answer for that is when you are just outright practicing wrongly (you
can check out the video here), think about this guys whatever you practice on the piano
you get better at.
So when you're practicing correct things, you get better at those correct things.
when you're practicing wrong things you're actually improving those wrong things as well.
My advice for you with increasing tempo in your piece is is to incrementally increase
a little bit every day to challenge yourself.
But you must take care that each and every note is actually played accurately and clearly.
If it's muddy and messy, you have to go back to a slower speed.
You will improve your technique most rapidly only when you are playing every note accurately.
As I'm saying this to you now, I can assure you I am just as much saying this to remind
myself to do the same that "Clarity always always beats speed".
I'm gonna give you now four concrete tips to think about when you are increasing your
tempo of the piece you're practicing.
Number One is to prioritize accuracy and clarity.
Make sure that whatever speed you're practicing, whether slow, medium or fast, that notes are
always clear.
This is why i think it's really important for you to either record yourself regularly
or work with a teacher that can give you direct feedback.
And that's because accuracy and clarity isn't so well judged by ourselves when we're playing.
When you're playing your piano your brain is so focused on getting all the right notes
the right dynamics.
etc. it can be hard to accurately determine if you're doing a great job at producing clear
notes until you get that outside perspective.
So record yourself or get a friend, a teacher, or a mentor to listen to you and to give you
some feedback.
Tip Number Two for increasing your tempo, is to do some hand separate practice.
Now I always love to say to my students in piano - one plus one equals five.
What does that mean?
That means when you master a part, for example...
...and you master the other part.
To put them together is not as easy as one plus one oh done equals two.
The coordination difficulty of putting two hands together is significantly harder than
just mastering each hand one at a time.
Because it's so difficult, you must make sure that each hand is 110% sure of its parts before
you can then put them together and kind of start to work out which notes go where.
I'm awfully surprised at how many pianists don't do hand separately practice.
It's a big part of my routine.
Try even just 10 minutes of it.
I'm sure it will give you plenty of results.
Tip Number Three for increasing your tempo is to practice in small sections.
Try to focus on two or four or eight bars and practice just that part faster than the
other parts.
Practice each of these sections faster for seven times and you're going to see huge results.
The Final Tip for increasing your tempo is to always go back to slow practice.
Now I know that sounds a bit boring but I can promise you in my 19 years of playing
this instrument, slow practice is the winning routine I want to teach everybody.
Because slow practice allows you to prioritize accuracy and clarity in a way that fast practice
simply can't offer you if you live in my house and you listen to how I practice you will
see that I practice slow more than I practice fast.
This is a strange phenomenon of whenever I practice something slowly, I actually end
up feeling more comfortable when i play fast.
The reason is because slow practice allows you to think about accuracy and clarity which
then gives you that assurance to play fast later on.
And there we go, that sums up how and when to increase the speed of the piece that you
are practising.
Do you agree on what was discussed in this video?
Or do you have any tips yourself for how or when you increase the speed of the piece you're
practising?
Let us know in the comments below.
Remember to also ask your questions.
90% of the content on this channel are from your questions.
Happy practicing and I'll catch you in the next one.