Playing at speed

[pianoplayer51]

I am sure most on here will agree that when you start a new piece, you start slow until you have mastered all the dynamics and notes.  I have a piece to play which requires a fast speed.  I can play it slowly no problem but when I try at the desired speed, I miss notes etc.   The only way for me to tackle it is to increase the speed gradually so I play it a little bit faster than before and once I am confident that I can play it slightly faster, then I increase it a little bit more and continue like this until I am at the correct speed.   To jump from quite slow to quite fast is too hard for me.

How does anyone else learn to play fast?   What is your method?

Thanks in advance.

[faulty_damper]

Running is not walking really fast, and walking is not running really slow.  The same principle applies to piano playing.  For this very reason, I disagree that you start slow until notes and dynamics are mastered.  If it's fast, you start fast to get the general movements learned and then slow down to figure out the fine motor movements necessary for accuracy.  This usually only takes a couple minutes of practice to figure out what the general movements are.  Fine motor coordination requires slow practice and this will take much longer.  This is advice I would give for newbies.

However, once you've learned that running is running, you can practice running really slowly and it will still be running.

[pianoplayer51]

Well everyone has their own way and you have to do what works for you and the way I mentioned works for me and I can now play the piece fast 

[1piano4joe]

Hi pianoplayer51,

I pretty much do what you do.

I don't have a one size fits all approach for building speed. In fact, in varies quite a bit.

Sometimes I need to stay at one speed and cycle the specified measure(s). Sometimes it's two bars at a time sometimes three. Sometimes, just a bass note and a far away chord repeated over and over. Sometimes, one chord than another back and forth.

Sometimes I play a phrase then repeat 1 metronome click higher. Sometimes I can increase two clicks at a time which cuts down considerably on the repetition.

Sometimes I find myself playing forwards and backwards.

I can only improve so much on a given day and at some point the playing gets worse. Then I know that I reached my potential for that day on that 10 minute work out. I do, however, repeat it again, one time, really slowly. I read somewhere to do this.

Then I go on to my next little workout whatever that may be.

I'm very analytical, I write things down. This way when I come back to a piece the next day I can continue without back tracking.

Hands separately first, slowly. I try to build up to at least 5 metronome clicks higher H.S. than the desired final tempo.

Measures 1&2 quarter = 160 check
              3&4 q = 60 this is a big problem I think
              5,6,7 q = 80 less of a problem
               8,9,10 q = 90 maybe no problem at all, maybe just needs another day or two to gel
                etc.

When I come back I know what needs the most work. Today, I changed the fingering on part of a piece that was particularly troublesome. Maybe I could have eventually played it the way I was originally trying to but decided not to. Why kill myself with all the finger gymnastics?

Then H.T.

Some parts come along faster than others and need little to no work.

Eventually I play the thing through. Maybe phrase work, maybe section [A] only, maybe .

I start analyzing what's holding me back. What parts do I absolutely have to memorize? What parts do I absolutely need to look at my hands?

Generally, full speed comes about after memorization. I don't actually make any effort to memorize. It just happens as a result of all the hard work I've put into it.

Well, just thought I'd share, Joe.

[j_menz]

Much as it surprises me to be in this position, I actually more or less agree with faulty-damper on this one.

For many passages, what you need to be able to do to go fast may well be a different fingering, a different movement of the hands, a different balance between arm, wrist and finger movement, etc,  than what you can get away with just going slowly.

In this sense, just starting off slow may mean you ingrain (bad) habits which you will need to break later in order to go fast.

You need to work out what it is you need to do to go fast, and then practice THAT slowly and build up.

[1piano4joe]

Hi j_menz,

Thank you for this well written response!

For many passages, what you need to be able to do to go fast may well be a different fingering, a different movement of the hands, a different balance between arm, wrist and finger movement, etc,  than what you can get away with just going slowly.

Would you PLEASE write more along those lines?

You need to work out what it is you need to do to go fast, and then practice THAT slowly and build up.

So true, but...

How? I often can't play a passage for this very reason. I just don't know WHAT to do.

I often THINK, that I have it "worked out", when in reality, I don't. It's not that I can't go fast. It's more that, as it turns out, it's not fast enough. So, yeah, I can learn to WALK very fast but that will never be as fast as RUNNING.
 
I couldn't play "The Avalanche" by Heller up to speed for the life of me. The seemingly impossible, hand crossing arpeggios, were my downfall. There was a tutorial on YouTube by SallyChristianMusic demonstrating this "Pawing" motion. I never had to do this before and  I never even heard of it! Pulling my hand toward myself and flattening it out so that only the very tip of my finger is holding the key.

There is no way, I would have EVER figured this motion out (or to know to even look for it), this very foreign (to me anyway) movement on my own. That is for sure.

If it's fast, you start fast to get the general movements learned

What? How exactly is that supposed to happen?

I think, if anything, starting fast will teach me what movements, that I know and possess already, will or won't work. As an intermediate player, this would be more of an analysis tool that could be useful for evaluating a techniques suitability or my lack thereof.

I guess I could use this as an indicator, that I don't "KNOW" an appropriate technique, for a given passage and need to research it either by asking here, a teacher or watching a YouTube performance.

If only I had started those arpeggios fast, much frustration could have been avoided!

I might have known, that there was yet another deficiency in my technique that needed to be LEARNED someplace, somewhere, somehow.

I think I need to sleep on this and digest this thread. That's all for now, Joe.

[j_menz]

It's difficult to give more detail without a specific passage in mind, and indeed without seeing you playing it.

More of a generality, but what I find useful for a passage that needs work to bring it up to speed is to start off fast, without worrying too much about the exact notes, at speed, just to see what it feels like, and often to plan way to make it feel "right". Then I go back and work at it slowly, making sure to get the notes right, but using the movements, and aiming for the general feeling that I had going at tempo.  For every four or six goes through slow, I repeat the fast, again not sweating notes, but also increasingly noting where they are wrong, and refine the movement. Then back to the slow. After a few fast goes, any wrong notes now indicate a wrong approach and need more serious thought.

[ted]

You could always try the old trick of breaking a continuous, fast passage  into convenient small sections, each of which you can easily play at speed, separated by small pauses. Then gradually eliminate the gaps over time. This has worked like magic for me in the past, although I haven't the slightest idea why it should have.

[drazh]

if you hit the speed wall slow practice is not the solution.you will never pass the wall.

[bronnestam]

You could always try the old trick of breaking a continuous, fast passage  into convenient small sections, each of which you can easily play at speed, separated by small pauses. Then gradually eliminate the gaps over time. This has worked like magic for me in the past, although I haven't the slightest idea why it should have.

This works well for me too. Besides, it makes your practice more efficient as you get the time to practice the difficult areas more times ... (Slow practice takes a lot of time, in case anybody hasn't noticed ...) Normally there are just a few areas in the piece that are this difficult - if there are many, or if the whole piece is that hard, then I would say you should move on to something easier.

There are some other little learning tricks as well: if you see an arpeggio forming a chord, then play it as a chord first, until you are dead sure how to position your fingers.
You can bounce on every note, for example 4 times in a very fast tempo, then 3, then 2, then 2+1 and 1+2, which will work up fast movements even though you get some time to think ...
You can also play a "skeleton" - simplify the piece to a rough structure, for example play just every 4th note in long runs - but be careful not to change the original fingering because otherwise you'll be in trouble later ...
Personally I also find it useful to practice fast passages in a dotted rythm, which is another way to say "one note fast, the other slow". Just be careful to change that rythm regularly before it gets stuck with you; it is a tool for learning, not a habit to form. I usually change the rythm after 3 repetitions.
If it is written staccato, practice in legato or divided legatos, or the opposite.

A very difficult exercise is to play some - plan in beforehand! - notes in ff and the other in pp, and to do a different pattern with your other hand.

Will these exercises sound good, sound like music? No, probably not! But the whole point is that you teach your brain many, many different ways to play these segments, and you are also forced to stay concentrated every time you play them. When you play exactly the same segments/pieces exactly the same way, perhaps just with a slight gradual increase of tempo, you will form a lot of bad habits on your way, including little muscle tensions and jerks that you will enforce in every repetition, until you just cannot get rid of them again. And there is your "speed wall".  
If you constantly change your "parameters" you will avoid those built-in tensions, and you avoid the autopilot trap, and soon you will find that you can play just as you decide to play - including fast, even and correct.  Besides it is fun.  

The secret of playing real fast is to be as relaxed as possible, which you will be when you feel that you have total control of your playing, every keystroke.

[timothy42b]

Much as it surprises me to be in this position, I actually more or less agree with faulty-damper on this one.

For many passages, what you need to be able to do to go fast may well be a different fingering, a different movement of the hands, a different balance between arm, wrist and finger movement, etc,  than what you can get away with just going slowly.

In this sense, just starting off slow may mean you ingrain (bad) habits which you will need to break later in order to go fast.

You need to work out what it is you need to do to go fast, and then practice THAT slowly and build up.

+1

Incremental speedup has NEVER worked for me.

I always need to use various tricks to simplify - short sections, etc. at faster tempos.

Then I slow down to perfect the motion.

There is a very interesting youtube video where the teacher uses a metronome and goes through the hard sections of a piece, starting with one note at tempo, then adding one note at a time.  I can't find it right now but will post it when I do. 

[faulty_damper]

I huge part of why incrementally increasing speed does not work (it's never worked for me, either) is that it places sole emphasis on the movement of the fingers.  The fingers can only do so much alone and slowly increasing speed is just slowly finding the limits of how much the fingers can work.

There is no I in team, and playing the piano is the same.  It's a careful coordination of all parts of the playing apparatus that allows for speed (and ease).

[louispodesta]

I am sure most on here will agree that when you start a new piece, you start slow until you have mastered all the dynamics and notes.  I have a piece to play which requires a fast speed.  I can play it slowly no problem but when I try at the desired speed, I miss notes etc.   The only way for me to tackle it is to increase the speed gradually so I play it a little bit faster than before and once I am confident that I can play it slightly faster, then I increase it a little bit more and continue like this until I am at the correct speed.   To jump from quite slow to quite fast is too hard for me.

How does anyone else learn to play fast?   What is your method?

Thanks in advance.

I have developed at two step method that I learned separately from two different teachers.

First, as my coach Thomas Mark teaches, you have to slowly choreograph each note, in terms of hand position, fingering, shaping, and body position.  If you don't get this right, even if you do get it faster, you will eventually miss notes and often injure yourself.

Second, once it feels comfortable and natural, all the way through, then you need to start using a technique that cognitive psychologists refer to as clustering.   That means that your brain can process multiple bits of information as one bit, if it is combined together logically.

So, you take bits of a run or an arpeggio, and then you group them into clusters.  My rule of thumb is to use groups of 1,2,3 or 1,2,3,4, as long as the last finger ends on a white note.

After that you start practicing them as fast as you can, and most importantly, as relaxed as you can.

Finally, you string them together and your brain processes all of it as one muscle command.  Once again, when I say relaxed, that means your jaw, your stomach, your breathing, and everything else.

This is a technique that a pianist, who you may have heard of (by the name of Rachmaninoff), used to teach his students.
 

[pianoplayer51]

  Thank you for your wise words.

[slane]

For many passages, what you need to be able to do to go fast may well be a different fingering, a different movement of the hands, a different balance between arm, wrist and finger movement, etc,  than what you can get away with just going slowly.

Because you can fudge fingering at slow speeds where you have time to think of where your next finger will go after that bit of clumsiness you just played but at fast speed you have to be accurate.

This is very interesting to me. Lately I've been doing the old start slow and methodically get faster approach and it doesn't seem to be very efficient. So tell me ... what speed to you decide to start at?
Do you set the metronome to the marked and speed and aim for that?

[j_menz]

Because you can fudge fingering at slow speeds where you have time to think of where your next finger will go after that bit of clumsiness you just played but at fast speed you have to be accurate.

It goes a little further than that. Some movements work when you're going slow, and are easy and reliable, so no need to change them. Going fast requires greater efficiency. Some things that work well at speed can even be a bit clunky when going slower.

This is very interesting to me. Lately I've been doing the old start slow and methodically get faster approach and it doesn't seem to be very efficient. So tell me ... what speed to you decide to start at?
Do you set the metronome to the marked and speed and aim for that?

I don't use a metronome.

I start off as close to full speed as I can manage without making a complete hash of it. In other words, I'm hitting all the notes, but may not be hitting them the right way, and may have a few ones that are the wrong note (but I'm hitting one nearby - close, and actually hitting something at that point).  That's only for one or two runs through, though. Then it's taking what I learnt from that and developing it with a slower approach for several run throughs. Then try again at full speed, or as close as I can get.

It's the interaction between the two approaches that works for me.