Stalling at the same points while learning a piece, a familiar experience?

[michael_student]

I've been learning a new piece, working on it several hours per day/night for the past few days.  I can play nearly all of it at tempo, and I no longer play incorrect notes or depend on the sheet music much.  But there are three or four places where I usually take a little longer to remember what to do next, long enough to throw me off tempo (and probably put me out of sync with the bass player).

I've tried playing just those parts very slowly, playing just one hand, and going over and over them.  The undesired pauses are much shorter than they were, and I'm nowhere near giving up.  I'm just wondering if this memory stalling issue is a familiar experience to expert players also, and whether there's anything else I should be doing besides repetition.

[chopinlover01]

Since you said bass player, I'm going to assume this is a jazz tune? If so, go over what the chord progression is. Aside from that, we can't say because you haven't specified at all what the piece is.
A score with bar numbers is the only way we can help you.
Cheers mate

[hfmadopter]

You need to identify the weakness as assuredly there is one. For me generally that will be a left hand chord change or else right hand fingering. One of the two but until identified it just feels like a slow down while hand fools the other and the brain into thinking it is the other.  But once you determine just what and where it is you can't work on it effectively. However once you do know then work on coming into and through the tough spot even with hands alone work sometimes. And to sometimes those weak spots become the strongest of the piece after the work is done.

Right now I'm working on a couple of pieces I was soloing. However we have decided my wife is going to sing these and now I'm accompanying her. I realized quickly and in playing to her pace that in changing this up my chords are weak in the left hand . My progressions are not strong in two spots so I will fix that by next Sunday, maybe even tomorrow morning. Playing along with her is like performing in a duet actually. I have a chorus part that is all mine though so that's good, as long as I remember to come back for her !! It's fun but breaks my style of playing habits a bit.

[chopincat]

This is definitely a familiar experience! Speaking from personal experience, my suggestion would be to practice the whole piece at a tempo that you can play the whole piece at - without long pauses that take you off the beat. If you can train yourself to not pause at those places and play the whole piece at a steady (though perhaps slower) tempo, you will be able to move the tempo up later on without having difficulties at those spots.

[michael_student]

Thank you for the help everyone.  I'll get back to you with the outcome, and the specific spots that are bogging me down if I'm still having trouble after applying what you wrote here.  Today by playing SUPER SLOW (50bpm, the lowest metronome setting I have) I've caught a couple fingering inconsistencies that may be part of the problem. 

Yes, it's a jazz tune... not a fast tempo but the chord changes are tricky as I'm new to jazz.

[michael_student]

Now playing at 72 bpm without the stalls, which was what I was aiming for.

It seems that I was lying to myself about how well I actually knew the piece, and trying to blaze through the parts I didn't really have down properly.  This is making me reconsider my conclusions years ago why I didn't get as far at guitar as several other kids I knew.  I played guitar a lot, but couldn't play things they could play.  I've been assuming my co-ordination was the problem, and now I'm wondering if my ineffective practice habits were also the problem.