Benefits of Slow Practice

Hi everyone,

In this post I'm going to talk about the benefits of doing slow music practice.

I have the benefits of 'slow music practice' drilled into loads over the years by my current music teacher; and this method of practicing actually works.

By practicing your musical slowly, it will enable you to :-

- Figure out where you are going wrong within the pieces you are learning

- Focus on any tricky spots/ passages

- Improve on where you place you fingers

- Hear where you are going wrong

- Break up the pieces you are working on into smaller chunks

- Figure out any articulation

- Problem spots

When I first start working on a new piece with piece with my teacher; the first thing we focus on is the notes. But, even this gets broken down into smaller manageable chucks; and we work through the entire piece this way. Once all of the notes are sounding nice and secure, we then start to focus on the articulation within the piece, and again this gets broken down into more manageable sections. Once the notes and articulation are sounding secure, we then finish off by focusing on the dynamics using the same method. Once everything has been worked through its then usually a case of just refining the piece. This way of learning can take months, so you do you need quite a bit patience with it.

When I practice my flute at home sometimes things don't always go according to plan, and that's okay. I work on the spots that I'm currently struggling with at the time, or if this there's a tricky passage I will break it down and just work on smaller chunks until I get it. This could take anything from a day or two to figure or a number of weeks/ months. 

Even when I do break down my piece/s into smaller chunks I will stumble across areas that need more work than others, as other areas are sounding more secure than others. I occasionally have an 'off' tone day, and with slow practice I will try and figure why either my tone is off, or why is a particular note not sounding as it should.

By using slow practice it will enable you to isolate, and work on any tricky areas; figure out where you are going wrong with your technique and articulation to help you to improve on it. It also gives you room to think about what you are trying to achieve without overwhelming yourself. There's so many different reasons why practicing slowly is so beneficial.