practice it slower perfectly lots of times and then gradually pick up the pace. Perfect practice makes perfect performance!I disagree, If you pick up the tempo it works. Then try to practice this section at an appropriate speed with your eyes shut. This is the real test.
Not to offend you, Sarah, but I must disagree. I used to practice this way. If I'm not mistaken, you said you were 13 and had been playing about 3 years. When I was your age, I had been practicing about 5 years, though I wasn't as serious as I am now. About the end of freshman year in high school, it began to sink in that slow play, gradually increasing the tempo, was not the answer. I'm guessing I was different than many of the people on this board though, because they talk as if they play extremely well. I have been plagued by tension for years, and while my teachers were readily available to talk music, not many of them could explain the correct motions to play the piano. Needless to say, I had developed some very bad habits. By the end of high school, I knew that this idea of "slow play, gradually increasing speed", or, as C. C. Chang refers to it, the "intuitive method", was not the answer.
Through a wonderful program called "Dean's Host", I had a half-hour lesson with my now college professor my senior year in high school. She showed me a new way to work arpeggios (or, at least, it was to me), that removed all the tension I was experiencing and, surprisingly, increased my accuracy. See, before I met her, I was taught that you always practiced legato, even for high speeds. The passage in question was the left hand of Rachmaninov's Prelude Op. 23, No. 5, the B section. I did whacky things with my elbow, trying to connect all the notes together. She freed me from that, having me play it as if it were two chords and working on the switch in hand position, where the fingers did practically no work at all. Being the correct way to play the passage, it worked like magic. I learned about jumps from her in the fall of my freshman year, playing the Brahms Rhapsody Op. 79, No. 2. I'll be a sophomore this fall.
So the point is, taught the correct way to play piano, I could do all of these seemingly impossible things. Herein lies the problem: The "intuitive method" requires that you must know the correct motions from the beginning and using them at all times. This is fine if you have a good teacher who knows the correct motions, but if you don't, you're screwed. In addition, if you are practicing the correct motions, then you'll find that there are other ways to learn the passage that are much faster. All the intuitive method ensures is that you will be repeating the passage many, many, many times. If you are using the wrong motions, then you are ingraining bad habits many, many, many times. This is not good. In the case of jumps, any arm motion that is slower than that you would use at speed is wrong. It is okay to jump, then pause before actually playing the notes, but the action that shifts the position of the hand must be swift. If you can't move your arm that fast yet, then there is practice to be done, away from the piano, in fact. Slow practice does have uses, but slowly speeding up a piece is not the way to do it. Slow practice can ensure perfection in motion, but only if you know the correct motion first. And when using the correct motion in slow practice, there is no need to slowly speed it up, as you should be able to play it at speed anyway, albeit with one or two flubs that need to be ironed out (This is a small segment, mind you, perhaps a bar or two). Practice at different speeds is to ensure you can play it at those different speeds, so it is quite random (i.e. - you might do a passage at 132 and then 96 and then 116 and then 108 and then even 144, if you can manage it). It's a form of memory work too, but that is for checking note-by-note memory, and is much slower than that mentioned above. Also remember that, yes, you should be able to play the passage with your eyes closed or looking away from the keys, but you must also be able to do it looking at your hands. It may surprise you, but there are people who suddenly lose their memory the instant they glance at the keys.
For further reference on practicing and especially the uses of slow practice, look at C. C. Chang's book (
www.pianofundamentals.com) and the posts on this website by the user bernhard. For a fantastic reference on the motions used at the piano, look at Seymour Fink's Mastering Piano Technique or Gyorgy Sandor's On Piano Playing.
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