How to Practice Slowly and Why It's Important 

If you can play it slowly, you can play it quickly

A great reminder that cannot be overstated. Playing with a metronome often also helps me keep speed under control.

It makes the music a pleasure to play. No longer does it feel like an exhausting chore.

Absolutely correct! I learnt this trick from my great piano teacher who was a pupil of a pupil of Liszt. She was so adamant about slow practice. In all my years of teaching I got good results from students who took actually DID what I told them. Of course, some didn’t and they failed.

I’ve been telling my students this all the time. I was guilty of practicing incorrectly for quite a long time. I now play so much cleaner and precisely and my connection to my instrument (sax) feels so much more organic and by playing slowly, I have the luxury of sensing how my fingers are interacting with my instrument.

It's summer, 1982(3?), and I'm attending my third (& final) participation in John Mack's summer oboe seminar with 70+ other students. On my application I was foolish enough to submit Gunther Schuller's Sonata as one of three proposed performance excerpts and to my astonishment he picked it. I practiced it like a man possessed but the third movement was kicking my butt all the way to camp. It's not like I didn't already understand and abide by these "rules" for practicing, either. I was a student of Stevens Hewitt at the time and his requirement was "play it three times in a row flawlessly before you're allowed to go to the next metronome setting." ... The composition is 12-tone, 3rd movement is a Rondo in 6/8, speed set at 80bpm for the dotted quarter note (six sixteenth notes). A two-measure passage occurs twice in the movement where the oboe starts to play on one of its lowest notes, scampers through the 12-tone theme via counter-directional arpeggios, up 2-½ octaves and almost all the way back down. Fearing disaster for my performance, I got John's permission to hide in a room for a day of woodshedding. I focused on those two measures for two 4-hour sessions either side of a lunch break. Each session started fresh at 40bpm for the eighth note (⅛th concert speed). By lunch I could play it @ ⅔ concert speed. Before dinner I was nailing it at will. In the end the joke was on me because come time to play the piece we were running behind schedule and, because that 3rd movement has a reputation of sounding like it comes from a whole different composition than the 1st & 2nd movements, he gave me a choice of playing either/or... so I played the first two. Still, the endurance boost from my rigorous practice session had great effect on my ability to emphasize my notions for lyric phrasing and he made a point to congratulate me on the performance. It's not every day you get congratulated by an icon. Whenever a student doesn't seem to comprehend the significance of this tip I tell my story. It's amazing what they bring to the following lesson.

I'm definitely going to try this. I think this is why I make so many mistakes 😢

Very useful advice. I play too fast too early and then I'm like "I can't play this properly". I need to change this. Thank you.

This is a deeply insightful video on a concept that is so simple that most people don't appreciate the power it holds. I find the discipline, restraint and patience needed to execute this approach is sometimes harder than the music itself.

This is something I've known for a long time intellectually (what teacher doesn't say this?), but this video crystallized it for me. I think watching you actually put it into practice is what convinced me-if someone at your level can still face similar issues, I should be more humble and slow down. I just tried it in my practice session and already saw major improvement in multiple pieces! I also did some harmonic analysis to solidify my understanding of the composition, and the combination of these two approaches made my playing a lot more confident. Thanks for finally getting me on the right path! I really think this is going to help me get past some of my roadblocks.

Excellent advice … thank you. PS: Another idea from my teacher is to learn a piece one bar at a time but … always include the first note in the following bar. I think this would help with transitions as you describe them in this video. Thank you.

Great advice to go slow! My organ teacher told me to start playing a tempo so the fastest note in the piece at 60/min. That gives enough time to not make mistakes, even at the first go. It is an incredible feeling to later speed up and never make a mistake, which stays in the performance as well.

先生、お疲れ様です。比国からのギタリストです。大学の頃から、ゆっくりで練習しなさいとよく言われましたが、意味は池上先生のようにちゃんと説明していただけなかった。ゆっくりしないと早く出来ないとよく言われるけど、その裏に何で早くできないことはずっと悩みました。理由を詳しく説明していただき、ありがとうございました！

when I am learning a new piece I slow the bpm right down to 60bpm and practice for about 10 mins until I get it perfectly without making any mistakes. Then I gradually increase the speed by 4 bpm. And this is on fast pieces, by the time I reach over 150bpm my playing is so clean

I just found your channel and it helped me so much. Please keep posting!

Nice to see an expert demonstrate this.

Great video, Akira! This is the most coherent and logical explanation of _why_ to play slowly that I have ever heard. Thanks!

I started doing this yesterday. It's working!!! Thanks for your great advice. I'll stick to slowing way down from now on.

My teacher wants me to play slowly and I'm always way too fast. Sometimes even above the indicated tempo. I finally see what she wants to achieve and I'll try to practice much much slower from now on! Thank you for this amazing video!

Very interesting point about the fast playing being easier because of kinaesthetic memory. The fast playing sounded very good to me personally. Thank you for this great video.

Thx so much!!! I need to follow ur advise..my teacher say 2 me the same thing anytime..but I never got it so clearly.

Good video thank you!! I will try practicing more slowly now, and try to stay patient

The intro is literally me. 😂😂

Thanks so very much for this music acquisitions method!! You are absolutely correct! Slowing down in keeping strict time with a metronome helps very much. ❤

Excellent lesson for anyone on any instrument. Thanks!

Excellent advice!! Totally logical Thank you!!

Hi Akira. Thank you for one more video!!!

Yes, this is very helpful and useful suggestion. I started practice slowly, and the effect is amazing. Thanks a lot!!

Funny and useful video!

That’s exactly what I need, thank you so much for making this video ❤❤❤❤

Another wonderful tip. Thank you Akira

This is great. Thank you.

Great!! Tnx 🤍

Nice video. Showing even someone who has a lot of experience still has to practice the basics.

Great lesson !!!

i'm brazilian and your channel was an amazing find, i love how music can bring people together and your content is amazing keep producing 👏🏻

You are so correct and we need to hear it so many times. I have some pieces in my musclememory since I played them as a teenager and those are perfect example of this. I need to play them slower than anyone will recognise them.

Interesting video. Thanks !

Thank you very much for advice..

Thank you Akira. So fundamental, yet many of us rush through our music. Play slow is the key. Could you please cover on tension of the fingers and wrist. Would like to know what exercises to relieve and relax the wrist. Thanks

Very good video and very applicable for my instrument too. Thank you very much! Keep up the good work :)

Great advice! It really home. I realize I have been relying a lot on muscle memory cause lately I can play my exercises and just let my mind wonder lol

Thank you so much.

Did I ever need this. It's one thing to say it but it's another to see it. I really need to take this advice and be more patient with myself. Thanks.

We finally get La Campanella performance! :O

Wow! Thanks for sharing your knowledge with Us.. I will subscribe!

I'm guilty of everything you pointed out - excellent advice!

very interesting, I think this could be applied to almost anything we learn

Came across your channel recently. Great job on the content. You're super informative. Thanks for your hardwork

You are awesome with your teaching methods. Keep up the good work. I suppose you are helping many students become pianist.

I think this is a brilliant video with such good advice. Makes me want to go and try it out. thanks

Hi Akira Just found your channel, even tho I’m a classical guitarist not a pianist your advice is still perfectly valid for me , thank you 😊

Very timely video. I am running into this problem of pausing at certain transition points as well. My teacher wants me to go slower as well until I strengthen my technique. Thanks for all that you do!

Great🎉

It was perfect as usual.. please make some videos about sight reading.🙏⚘️

Playing fast and crashing is the music version of ego lifting in the gym 😂

💥 Professor, I noticed that when you played La Campanella, even very slowly, you kept looking at the keyboard. Why ? Wouldn't it be better to practice without looking at the keys, so you would gain the spatial distance for the jump across the keyboard ? And many people don't have a good sight reading because they keep looking at the keys, instead of looking at the sheet music. So, what do you recommend, trying to play slowly looking at the keys or without looking ? Thank you so much. 🎉❤

Akira, thank you for this tip. I heard it said many times but you have convinced me that it is a must in order to improve. One thing I don't understand is your view on muscle memory. If it is not muscle memory then what is it that allow us to play a piece without really thinking?

Thanks for this important lesson, what book do you use? I love the instructions on it.

Thanks for this video! I am extremely guilty of practising too fast, and at some point, those stops become muscle memory, which gets frustrating. The only thing I'd disagree with in this video is slowing down makes it boring, which would be the case if I didn't use the time to really appreciate the piece and think about how I want to play a section. Practising Bach is boring for me until I do that, and sometimes Debussy too.

11:13 The arrow should be pointing up if you want it to be slower.

Nice video. I have a question: how to practice slow with pieces that have different speeds? For example: sonatas always have 2 or 3 tempi.

If you can play it perfectly slow, you can play it perfectly fast. One in fact save more time practicing slowly than fast

Agree. I have my casio ap-270 at home and when tryed fortepian first time it was like my memory was wiped out by men in black 😂

i have a question . if you have practised a piece the wrong way can you start over to practise it slowly with slow tempo? also i started watching ur videos u are amazing

I have played lots of pieces slowly and perfectly...but when i play them fast... I always fumble

Can you talk a little about using page turning foot pedals with IPAD Forscore? Or perhaps it's just getting used to it.

how do you know me so well?

Which tablet you are using for music sheet. What is the display size of your tablet?

Great video as always, sensei. The only problem left is sight reading @@

How do you play “faster then faster” would you apply the same method? For example going from 150-200.

How to know if I’m practicing a piece that’s way above my level?

I have a big question: did Beethoven, Mozart, Bach, Chopin study music slowly (including their own music), even at the height of their careers?

Which metronome we must have to use for practice, mechanical metronome or electronic metronome?

to practice the whole concert slowly doesn't make it kind of incredibly long the time to be ready?... I mean play slowly is really difficult, I do it anyways but, could take a lot of time to have everything ready to perform decently.

What piece were you playing in the beginning

What to do with rythm when going very slow? I find keeping rythm very hard when going very slow…

I didn't undrestand one thing..Everytime when you start to play a new piece, you should play it without stopping? Or you should do it after a while when you undrestand it generally?

I’m guilty 😮

I watched this video at 1.5x speed, but had to pause a few times.

Don't you think that you have to work out the best "at tempo" fingering before you practice that fingering slowly?

How quilty you are!

Your Honesty is Priceless!Thank you for this great demostration.Liked & Subscribed!