Not Doing This HURTS Your Classical Guitar Playing

As you work on that piece you really want to play, you want results as fast as possible. Can’t you just sound like John Williams or David Russell now? I get it. I have felt that way many times.

Unfortunately, in our hurry to sound like great guitarists, we actually hold ourselves back by NOT doing something really important.

The thing we neglect would immediately make our technique better, our music reading better, our confidence better, and make us more comfortable playing.

Can you guess what it is?

Slow practice!

I can almost hear you groaning. You don’t want to play slowly. That’s boring.

I get it. I sympathize!

Actually, I have a tip that will make it less boring. But before I get to that, let me talk about why practice slowly.

Why?

It gives us time to see mistakes coming and to prevent them before they happen.

It allows us to think about a particular aspect of technique and improve it.

It gives us time to look a few notes ahead in the sheet music, making our music reading more effective.

It allows us to feel more comfortable and confident.

But how do you keep from being bored?

Imagine that the piece is supposed to be played slowly. Think of it as a lyrical and expressive piece and savor every note. Enjoy the beauty of the sound.

Select a particular aspect of technique or note reading to improve on a given play-through. Use the extra mental bandwidth freed up by going slowly to focus intently on that aspect. Doing this is the real magic of playing slowly. This is what allows you to make much faster progress in improving your playing.

How do you know if you are doing it right?

Does playing the passage feel easy and comfortable? If not, go slower.

Are you playing notes and rhythms accurately? If not, go slower.

Do you have the mental bandwidth to focus on improving technique, note reading, musical expression, or whatever you want to improve? If not, go slower.

But when can you hit the accelerator?

Even if you embrace playing slowly, savoring every note, I know there is part of you wondering when you can increase the tempo.

I would recommend that you let this be an organic process. If you can play a little faster with comfort and accuracy, great! It is fine to go faster.

If you get to a tempo where you are tense and inaccurate, slow back down. Enjoy some repetitions just under this tempo until you feel comfortable moving up.

The funny thing is that while this seems slow, this process is actually a FASTER way to get the results you want. By playing well sooner, you drastically reduce the number of issues you need to fix later. You avoid learning things wrong and then needing to painfully relearn.

Training your brain works a little like programming a computer. It does not matter how fast you type a program into a computer. What matters more is that you type the right program into the computer. Once you have typed the right program, the computer can run it much quicker in a short period of time.

Your brain will do the same thing. If you play several accurate and comfortable repetitions at a slow tempo, your brain will begin to get used to what needs to happen. Increased speed will happen naturally and organically.