Certificate of Merit exams have passed and as I reflected on the last few months there was one reoccurring phrase I remember telling all my students, “PRACTICE SLOWLY.” I don’t think there was a single student that escaped that phrase.
I’ve been a firm believer in slow practice ever since my competition years; it has served me well through college and now as a professional musician. There is no way you can get through the complexities of classical music without practicing slow. Once you think you can get through a certain level of music easily, there will be another piece out there that will force you to slow down and rethink your abilities (I sit here laughing because after over 20 years of playing music I can STILL get stumped).
Not only do I believe that slow practice is the tried and true way, it is also the most efficient way. There is no quicker way to learn a challenging piece than to humble yourself and slow down; because once you get past all the technicalities of the piece, that is when you actually get to work on the musicality, the part that makes your audience want to listen to you play.
I ran into an article and a video in the last few months that reiterates the methods to my madness. The article highlights some research on practice that was done by University of Texas, Austin, which has a renown music program. The video is of Itzhak Perlman, one of the greatest violinists of our time. At least in my madness I know I’m in good company, enjoy: